


katakans sleep at dawn

by yogurtgun



Category: The Witcher, The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Sex, Come Inflation, Curses, Friends to Lovers, Geralt gets a family, Knotting, M/M, Marathon Sex, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Mutual Pining, Omega Jaskier | Dandelion, Oral Sex, Size Kink, Snowballing, Unplanned Pregnancy, Vampire Jaskier | Dandelion, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:27:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 73,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24128932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yogurtgun/pseuds/yogurtgun
Summary: Two years after Geralt and Jaskier are forbidden to return to Calanthe's court, they find themselves in Redania on a contract. While helping Geralt decipher what happened at the estate of one Lord Langley, Jaskier gets cursed. Geralt does everything in his power to help him.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 155
Kudos: 742





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello beautiful people! Today I bring you, katakan Jaskier! All chapters edited by the wonderful Eryn,  
> [Eryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderryn/pseuds/wanderryn)  
> Since I understand that the tv show doesn't provide us with details about locations, I'll be providing the progress of their journey visually. The fic is written and I'll be posting as I edit. Cheers!
> 
> Edit: I don't know how but I absolutely forgot to mention, this fanfic fits the same verse as Eria's  
> [keen to be devoured by you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22414105)  
> Give it some love!

Though bathing in wealth unjustly acquired through unsound cruelty towards their surfs is despicable enough as it stands, Jaskier has to admit that his contemporaries amongst Redanian nobility really outdid themselves with their latest matter of opulence. He has been in almost every higher and lower court in the North but it’s only his countrymen that have decided to add a dash of hubris to their spendings, mainly by investing in summer and winter homes.

The estate which overlooks Pontar’s shore at the very south of Redania between Rinde and Piana, is a prime example. It’s large enough to house not only servants but also villagers, blacksmiths, stable masters, greenhouses, and enough flower beds to render a good patch of otherwise perfectly tillable land useless. It’s a little village in it’s own right, multiple houses packed together and unified by their brown-tiled roofs, above which the main house rises its head in judgment. A perfectly functional wall circles the estate before spilling into a gate which has fallen into disrepair and which Geralt jimmies open without further trouble.

Jaskier gazes at the estate with little more than disdain before Geralt turns back and says, “Coming?”

Jaskier looks at him and, though perhaps not always, he feels as if Geralt and he share the same sentiment now. He follows. It’s not the first time he’s accompanied Geralt on a primary investigation for a job. This one fell into their laps all on its own. While travelling east, Geralt noted a nekker nest and decided to destroy it since it was bothering the locals, just to be scouted by the overseer of the region, Lord Vallei, and then rather sloppily pressed into doing this job.

Jaskier understands that not every Redanian noble is able to play the game of politics: a little bit of seduction mixed with a whole slew of lies which presented the perfected manipulation concoction. Gods know Jaskier wasn’t made for it either, and why Oxenfurt had him amongst its ranks to begin with. Still, even he knows that grave tragedy, mystery, and evil, aren’t particularly entrancing keywords to get someone excited for another job after having nekker guts spewed all over him.

First, they pass the arbitrary, and now abandoned, guard posts. Opportunities to keep a nobleman’s home spotless over the rest of the year hasn’t passed up on the less fortunate, and at first, he’s sure, it looked like a prime opportunity. But Jaskier smells decay in the air, and that particular after-stench when the body has already been decomposing for a while.

Geralt takes his time. There’s no rush for him, not when he’s collecting clues, and so they go from the granary, where wheat and grist rot--grain Lord Vallei now needs since his fortunes he acquired through its trade--to the brewery where the alcohol sits in large vats, undisturbed. The storehouse isn’t much better. The awful scent that fills his nose isn’t decomposing bodies but decomposing food, vegetables not having only rotted, but decided to merge with the tables into one giant green blob of fungi.

No, Jaskier thinks, not ideal three keywords but enough to get Geralt interested in the job.

“Considering they all went mad and killed each other at the height of summer,” Jaskier musses, following Geralt into the barn where the rest of the livestock should’ve been kept, “they had an enviable larder.”

The crops shouldn’t have been coming in for at least two weeks after the incident. The hay in the stables, or rather the very little of it left, is evidence to that. But the grain, and the rotting food, speak of unusual ritches.

“Even nobles can’t make crops grow quicker.”

Sure enough, Geralt grunts, as if to say, _‘noted’_ and doesn’t reply, in a way that discourages any further conversation. It’s a fine line, reading Geralt. It’s a whole language that only one person speaks. One and a half, if you’re considering Jaskier’s masochistic efforts.

But it’s not the first time he’s been on a job with Geralt, and so Jaskier doesn’t take offence, nor does he demand audience and attention -- he knows Geralt’s senses are, most likely, sunk into whatever stench will decipher what the hell happened here.

He watches Geralt poke and prod at dead livestock, dead either from wolves, hunger, one another, or perhaps killed in a crazed rampage by people. It’s been almost a full year since the incident, so the majority of the bodies have liquified.

“Torn open,” Geralt says, mostly to himself. “The blood is old, but something--”

He moves his head, and stands up from the crouch, as if following an invisible line. “Trail of it, something heavy but thin was dragging on the ground.”

He walks out of the barn, and slowly moves his way, finally, to the main house. There’s a couple of entrances there--the kitchen doors, the main entrance, and the side doors. Geralt goes to the kitchen first, and following, Jaskier is surprised to find the same green fungi blob growing out of the table. There’s food rotting everywhere, almost untouched, and the cold box, at least what should’ve been the cold box, is filled with dried ham, also untouched. There’s a few large ham legs, sausages, ribs, some rubbed with spices, some just salted. The splatter of brown in the corner, in comparison, barely smells at all. Definitely smells less than the animals, which is a rule Jaskier usually finds is reversed.

It’s not the first dead person Jaskier’s seen. That’d be impossible with the company he keeps, and he’s not particularly spooked by death, or by the scene in front of him. Even disgust evades him. The only thing he feels, looking at the carcass, is a vague sort of curiosity.

When Geralt starts examining the body, Jaskier decides to head to the foyer.

The picture there, however, isn’t prettier. In fact, it’s defiantly worse. Jaskier never thought he’d see blood splatter on such a tall ceiling, or on the crystal chandelier that now refracts morning light. The smell of decay, ignorable in the kitchen, is anything but here. There are so many dead bodies in the landing that the stench is overpowering, assaulting, coating Jaskier’s tongue and nose in it. He can’t even smell Geralt when he comes through the kitchen passage, and however strange and mutated his alpha scent is, Jaskier really ought to be able to recognize him considering he’s known the man for a decade.

Geralt goes from one body to the other again, but it takes less time. “Their stomachs. I’ve seen this before. The bodies don’t stink so much because they starved to death.”

Jaskier ticks an eyebrow. “There’s literally a cold box full of ham. Plenty of food, all around.”

“Hmm,” Geralt says. “Perhaps not the food they needed.”

Whatever that means Geralt doesn’t explain, and Jaskier doesn’t press. He’s learned that Geralt will not disclose information no matter how annoying he gets about it. Instead, Jaskier goes on ahead to the tea-room, where at least he finds brandy that he can sniff to cleanse his palate. He pours himself a thimble even as he observes the corpse in the room which looks to be the house dog.

“This is just depressing,” Jaskier notes to Geralt. “Who the hell kills their dog? I’m going to go look if they got some money stashed here or something. Perhaps a provocative letter or two.”

Geralt gives him a look. “Ten murdered people, and you draw a line because of the dog?”

“What, should I task myself with emotional labour every time we come across a carcass? They’re dead, Geralt, and sympathies are generally lost on, you know, objects that can no longer understand you. Though,” Jaskier says, putting a hand on his hip. “I suppose I could dabble in melodrama, weep a little, if nothing else than to annoy you.”

Geralt shakes his head, like he does every time when they inevitably lapse into the general territory of Jaskier’s contemporary views that amuse him, and gives the go-ahead. The house may be creepy but if a monster hasn’t jumped them yet, it’s unlikely it will do so now. Geralt would’ve sensed it. Or smelled it. So Jaskier goes through the tables, and the books, and finds a handful of florians before he moves upstairs, to the private room of one Lord Langley, who didn’t die in his four-poster bed as much as he was spiked on one of its pillars.

The bedside table holds letters Jaskier takes great care in reading because there are juicy details, if only Jaskier knew the ladies in question. Then he moves to his writing table on top of which he finds the prize. Jewelry.

As a Redanian, he’s well aware rings carry a purpose, and authority. There are whole bloodlines whose status of nobility relies on them. They’re a show of power as much as they are wont to open many doors. They carry secret messages, and in times, secret compartments--poisons, and cures all the same.

Silver and gold are valuable in their own right, especially considering the emeralds and rubies stuck inside the thick, and rather heavy, rings Jaskier slips onto his fingers. Among such expensive craftsmanship, it’s easy to spot a poorly made ring. It’s surprising to find something so plain in a nobleman’s collection--just a band of gold and not particularly decorated either. He nicks himself when he slips it on his finger and puts his mouth over it to stench off the blood. Perhaps it was a gift, because its value definitely isn’t fitting the jewelry box.

With that all finished, Jaskier turns his attention to the writing desk itself where, without much trouble, he finds a rather poorly hidden compartment, and within it, Langley’s diary.

There’s no shuffle of feet, no sound, but Geralt appears in the doorway all the same, and it’s only a few soundless steps until he’s in front of Jaskier.

“What kind of Redanian keeps a diary,” Jaskier says, leafing through the pages. “I mean, for Gods’ sake, if even one servant sees it, you might as well have published it on the notice board.”

“Redania’s information network that bad?”

“Worse,” Jaskier corrects.

Geralt hums, as if he wishes to inquire more but doesn’t have the words for it exactly, and so Jaskier ignores him in favour of going to the end of the diary, and working his way back, trying to see if there’s anything of note. Geralt’s still wonderfully unaware of Jaskier’s pedigree, and he’d like for it to remain so indefinitely.

“Anything interesting?”

“Nope,” Jaskier says. “Just Lord Langley over there complaining how he’s hungry, but can’t keep anything down, how sounds torture him, how he’s loathe to get up from bed before noon--which he might as well considering he’s got no job--” Jaskier tapers off as his eyes jump over the following text. He feels excitement rush through him, before dread coallescess. “Oh.”

“What?”

Jaskier reads, “-- _this year, after father’s death, it was my time to do the family duty--I brought a sacrifice to the temple. A good thing too. Vallei has been nosing around the family past for far too long, and has become far too interested in our traditions_ \--”

“Vallei’s the name of our employer.”

Jaskier hums. “Perhaps he wasn’t so interested in the grain after all.”

“Read on,” Geralt instructs, with poorly concealed impatience.

“ _Just like father instructed me, I went to the temple in the cavern, where it is said that great-grandfather sealed an immortal. On the sacrificial rock, I cut my hand and I said the words_ \--”

“Don’t,” Geralt stops him right there. He takes the book, and reads quickly. Then, he says, “Fuck.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a curse. An elven one.” He considers the information, then says, “We need to find this temple.”

Considering there’s a hill backing the estate, the treck isn’t too long. They climb for about half-hour before they come to the mouth of the cave, and sure enough, just as written, it’s been sealed. A large boulder sits in front of them, though it’s surface is smooth. Jaskier looks but can’t find the sacrificial stone--there’s no blood anywhere.

“There ought to be a mechanism,” Geralt says, putting his fingers over the slab of stone, looking for a weakness.

Jaskier lets him work, but when he hears Geralt’s frustrated huff, he sighs and says, “What are you looking for exactly?”

“Don’t know,” he replies. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Maybe there’s another entrance,” Jaskier offers, touching the boulder. But no sooner than he’s said that, the earth begins to rumble, and the boulder shifts to the side to reveal a small, concealed passage.

Geralt wrinkles his nose, but doesn’t say anything as he steps inside, having to bend his head to pass through. Jaskier doesn’t fare any better, though he’s pretty sure Geralt isn’t thinking what horrors he’s getting stuck in his hair.

They surface on the other side into a winding path that smells of death, condensation, and stale air, that leads them past stalactites and stalagmites, and ends in old rock-cut stairs. They follow them up into a clearing, surrounded by four pillars, at the center of which, on a slab, a body lay chained. A body, Jaskier thinks, that looks perfectly inhuman. In fact, it looks like a huge bat.

Geralt considers it all, then says, “They captured a katakan.”

“A what?”

“It’s a race of higher vampires. Intelligent. More beastly than true high vampires, but controlled enough not to butcher their victims.”

Geralt lights the old braziers, and the aged wood burns with renowned strength.

“I can smell magic. Old magic.” He moves around the room, stepping carefully, just like when he’s tracking a beast, and after a moment of consideration points at the floor. “The inscription is the same as the curse. They wanted immortality.”

“But could humans do it, considering the magic and all?”

“Katakans aren’t immortal anyway. They have an extended life-span, a few hundred years, but no more. The witch, if they had the help of one, was not very good.” Geralt steps closer to the slab to observe the mummified body. ”Even if they managed to enter the katakan’s magic into the family’s bloodline, they cursed themselves doing so. Langley wasn’t prepared for what was to happen.”

Jaskier hums. “A good story, but why did the curse befall the whole estate then? Why didn’t it happen to Langley’s father? Furthermore, wouldn’t have they figured out something was wrong when his father _did_ die, like he wrote in the diary?”

“Good question,” Geralt says. “Maybe the katakan cursed all of his captors, not only the benefactors of the magic. Even if you have an extended life, things can still kill you like a big enough fall, a silver sword, or another higher vampire.”

Jaskier nods, collecting this information and storing it for later. “Perhaps, Langley would have survived had he not done that ritual.”

“They couldn’t eat regular food. They didn’t know what they could eat. And then, starved, they slaughtered each other. Fitting, considering. Look,” he points, “The katakan himself starved to death, held down by magic.”

Jaskier shivers. He’s travelled with Geralt for a long time, but whenever he thinks he’s seen the worst of humans, they inevitably manage to surprise him.

“We can’t do anything for Langley anymore but we can for the katakan. It’s best to at least burn the body. That should end the curse over the estate.” Geralt glances at him and huffs. “And take off the damn rings before you ruin them.”

“As if I’d ever do that,” Jaskier replies, but tugs them off anyway, folding them into his breast pocket for safekeeping.

When it comes to breaking the curse, Jaskier thinks, it involves much less magic than he thought. They take the katakan remains, carry them out, and burn them. The ashes, Geralt says, don’t hold any power anymore.

It’s midday when they’re finished. They don’t linger at the estate but ride back to their employer, who doesn’t look particularly happy about the turn of events. However, with all things considered, Jaskier’s fairly certain the prick didn’t want to end up like his friend.

They stay in the adjacent village two more days, waiting for Geralt’s armor to get repaired, before they peel off. There’s no song for the nameless katakan, nothing to make a ballad out of, only somberness of human cruelty. Jaskier has spent a decade in Geralt’s company, but it feels like no time passed at all between Posada and Piana. Just like then, Jaskier thinks nothing more of what happened, focusing instead on what’s to come ahead as he swaps the rings for coin.

#### -

The cramping starts about a month later, when they reach Flotsam. Now, Jaskier has been in many respectable dumps, but Flotsam is definitely among the worst ones so far, and he would have probably remembered to note it as such if he wasn’t overcome by the pain in his stomach. Furthermore, he feels fatigued which happens rarely, if ever, and heralds either an impending heat, which is not likely considering he takes his suppressants religiously, or he’s coming down with a case of something.

He drags himself rather miserably through the port, trying to dodge the cut-throat merchants and their steep prices. Flotsam, resting on the border between Redania and Kaedwen to the north, but also Temeria and Aedirn to the south, sits in the natural grove created by the Pontar river which cuts the continent, and the Kestrel mountains, in two. It’s one of the most lucrative merchant trade-routes. Goods can be ferried from Dol Blathanna, through the four kingdoms, to the shores of Cidaris, where Pontar spills into the North sea. However, unlike the usual settlements that bring in good coin, Flotsam and it’s cousin White Bridge, are made to be sturdy and to withstand the inaccessible wilderness that surrounds it.

Temerian colors that litter the streets tell Jaskier who the port is controlled by, though in truth, it’s the merchants who always have the final say. For instance, they're not inclined to part with coin half-way into their journey. Jaskier sits and plays for the majority of the day, and manages to earn just enough to cover the usual cost of the room, though, by evening-fall, Geralt’s already taken care of that.

Geralt doesn’t often sit and watch him play. If he must, he stays in the tavern long enough to eat or to converse with someone who has a job for him. While he gives little import to Jaskier’s craft, Jaskier also knows that he doesn’t wish to hear the songs about himself, which are the majority of Jaskier’s repertoire. Vanity is not one of Geralt’s faults, though Jaskier knows many men who would have preened and celebrated songs about themselves.

Taking all that into account, it’s a surprise to feel a hand on his shoulder by the end of his stint.

“What’s wrong,” Geralt says, leaving no room for argument.

Ignoring the insistence in his voice, Jaskier replies for the third time that day, “I’m alright.”

Just as he says it though, it’s as if his body revolts at the lie, and the pain flares up until he wishes to do nothing else but double over, the only thing keeping him upright being Geralt’s hand on his shoulder.

When the cramping stops, and he’s managed to avoid Geralt’s judging gaze, they walk up the stairs into their room. Jaskier toes off his boots and gathers every single blanket they have. Though he’s sweated through his undershirt, it’s from cold sweat, caused by naught but being racked with pain.

Jaskier pays no mind to Geralt until he says, “I can’t help you unless you let me.”

“There’s nothing to help _with_ ,” Jaskier replies, slipping under the blankets into the bed.

He can hear Geralt’s exasperated huff but he doesn’t push further. Wonderful. Jaskier allows himself to enjoy the lull of conversation, the silence broken only by Geralt’s quiet steps and quieter shuffling. Geralt eventually sits on the bed--they’re travellers, and penniless, thus used to it--and with that the silence grows loud, until he can hear the patrons downstairs, the buzz of the summer insects, the pumping of his own blood in his ears, the pulsing of pain in his abdomen. He has no fever to break, but he still feels gripped by it, for the time passes just the same--sliding away from him, yet when he opens his eyes once more it’s as if no time has passed at all.

“Perhaps,” Geralt’s voice flutters over, clear as Pontar’s flow, “you didn’t cook that bear quite right.”

Jaskier scoffs. “I know how to cook meat, Geralt.”  
  


He’d learned it the hard way, of course. After the first month travelling with Geralt, he realised that cooking was an option rather than a need for the man, and that if he wanted to avoid disease, and other unpleasantness when it comes to eating game, he ought to take matters into his own hands.

Jaskier turns in the bed, eyes landing on Geralt’s back. Jaskier observes the way Geralt’s shirt fits him, stretched over his shoulders, the way the collar presses softly against the back of his neck where his hair splits to reveal the silver of his chain. It’s not the first time Jaskier has seen Geralt like this, occupied with papers and letters that are requirements for his job, with his neck vulnerable to him. Yet, Jaskier still finds himself wanting to press his lips there even a decade later.

Geralt makes a sound of acquiescence to Jaskier’s point, but adds, “Any berries you’ve eaten this time that I need to know about?”

Geralt’s possibly the farthest person from the usual stereotype of an alpha Jaskier has ever met. Here Jaskier is, an unlikely omega--perhaps not slight enough, or short enough, or meek enough to fit the general social stereotype but still in pain--swathed in the scent of distress that even Jaskier can smell on himself, and all Geralt’s doing is mocking him. It’s one of the things Jaskier truly appreciates about his friend--his particular contrariety to the norm.

Jaskier’s grown up in a particular set of circumstances where information was key and privacy paramount, if unreachable. Alphas bullied others because they couldn’t stand the stress-hormones that grated on their senses until the issue at hand was revealed. Not for the benefit of the beta or omega, no, it was just to remedy their own senses which demand they be problem solvers and at the service of soothing others. An instinct frowned upon in Redania, yet used particularly well in squeezing out pertinent information.

Geralt doesn’t press him. Then again, there’s nothing to press Jaskier about. He’s just fine. What he needs is an interested prostitute who will kiss it all better.

Jaskier thinks about that last one for a moment, which must change his scent because Geralt turns to look at him. In return, Jaskier gets a good view of his wonderfully muscular back, and inviting forearms now on show, and his very complicated eyebrows that furrow now just like they do whenever Jaskier makes a move, or offers something casual in as many subtle words, with no consequences such as offended egos. At this point, it’s more a joke than anything else, unless Geralt wants to take him on seriously, at which point he’d drop the joke, and his trousers.

Geralt takes a not-so-subtle breath, and says, “Even in pain, you’re thinking about sex.”

“I’m a masochist, we’ve established this,” Jaskier replies.

Geralt makes a sounds of amusement, a cut off, dry laugh. Jaskier chuckles. He proclaimed himself exactly that after his latest failed love-affair, and Geralt mocked him for it incessantly. He’d take on any joke at his own expense if he always got to see the crow’s feet creasing the soft skin around Geralt’s eyes whenever he smiled, just like he does now.

Geralt’s hand reaches over and lands on Jaskier’s forehead.

“You don’t feel warm. I’ll get you some broth, when I go downstairs. Perhaps your boyish metabolism has finally failed you.”

Jaskier tries and fails not to push into the comfort of Geralt’s hand. “I’m twenty-eight, not dead. And it’s not indigestion, alright?”

Geralt hums, mocking him. He doesn’t look convinced.

Jaskier clicks this tongue. “Seriously, I’m fine. It feels no different than waking up drunk, sobering up, and that discomfort in the belly just afterwards, you know?”

“Intimately,” Geralt replies.

That makes Jaskier chuckle. Amused, he pokes his friend. “Don’t make me laugh, it makes it worse.”

Geralt lets himself be poked and prodded, perhaps a little too long, before he finally grabs Jaskier’s hand. “I’ll bite them.”

“Kinky.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, exasperated.

Jaskier does laugh this time, and pushes himself up on his hip. Geralt’s got his hand, true, but that doesn’t mean it’s not in _his_ advantage. After all, Jaskier’s scent is thicker and stickier on his wrists, and right now he’s interested and could talk himself into a rather lecherous mood if prompted.

Geralt smells good. It’s got nothing to do with his secondary gender--he’d smell good even if he were an omega or beta. Jaskier doesn’t much care either way. Depending on the region, the people don’t care either. Not, at least, until it’s time to pop out a few kids.

The fact is that Jaskier has eyes, and Geralt smells good, and he’s too amused about bickering with him. He definitely wouldn’t be put out if Geralt were to do something about it. After all, the thought of all of that pressed against him, or all of that under him, has Jaskier’s cock twitching.

Geralt considers him, in that usual way of his, breathing in subtly enough not to give himself away, but Jaskier knows him, and thus knows the way his jaw works whenever he gets a good lungful of his scent. Jaskier wiggles his fingers, to see if he can move his hand. Geralt’s hold is loose enough that he can. Wonderful. He cups Geralt’s face, like he does on occasion when Geralt’s malleable enough to let Jaskier shave him, and brushes his thumb over his lips, knowing his scent is tantalisingly close. Jaskier straddling a fine line, a line of propriety--presenting his scent, which is flirty, but not rubbing it on Geralt, which would be a serious proposition.

Geralt opens his mouth, which makes Jaskier all the more excited. Jaskier brushes the pad of his thumb over his sharp teeth, and thinks he’s getting somewhere this time, somewhere he sure as hell never thought he’d be able to even approach. Then Geralt clamps his teeth down, nipping his thumb.

Jaskier yelps and jerks his hand away. “You asshole! Could’ve actually bitten it off!”

“Yes,” Geralt replies, the little twitch of his lip an indicator of smugness Jaskier can smell. “Will you be good by yourself?”

“Unlikely,” Jaskier snarks.

Feeling as if he’s on his hind leg, Jaskier needs to get revenge, and so he licks the pad of his thumb, presentationally, just to be a dick about it. Geralt didn’t actually lick him, so there’s no scent to chase, but it’s the thought that matters.

Geralt’s eyes narrow and his scent warms, until Jaskier can taste it on his tongue. However, Geralt only shakes his head and stands, finding his way out of the room in three large strides.

It’s late in the evening so Jaskier settles on his half of the bed and, bored of reading through the same books he’s read already, he glances at the diary he kept from the Langley estate. He considers it for a moment, but he’s too tired to read Redanian scribbles, and so he falls asleep before Geralt returns. Perhaps it’s for the best, because when he wakes up he smells broth, cold but still palatable, and downs it with the pitcher of water.

Jaskier can barely see the outline of Geralt’s back cut out from the cloth of dark that swaddles the room. Yet it’s such a familiar shape that even blind, Jaskier knows Geralt by touch, by the taste of his scent on his tongue alone, and finds himself curling into his back, face pressed between shoulder blades. Geralt always sleeps on the outside, turned towards the doors. The first line of protection.

Jaskier returns to sleep. It’s in the middle of the night that his pain crests, cramps overwhelming him, and not so very different from the pain he felt the few times he spent his heats alone before he got on the medicine. He shakes and breathes through it, wishing he asked Geralt to get him something for the pain, even though he knows he could have never uttered the request.

Eventually Geralt turns and throws a hand over him to keep him still--he’s probably rocking the bed--and somewhere between the sweltering heat of Geralt’s chest and the heaviness of his hand, Jaskier falls asleep again.

In the morning, the cramping is gone.

#### -

Ignoring his bout with phantom indigestion--Jaskier still claims it’s definitely not it, despite what Geralt might think he’s not a child eating berries off the side of the road despite knowing better-- it’s no secret that Jaskier has big appetites. They’re specific, true, specific to his nature as a man, and nurture as a bard, which range from cuisine, comfort, and company. Just because he’s not in Redania anymore, having crossed the border a week ago, and he’s about ten years and a thousand leagues from Oxenfurt, doesn’t mean his standards aren’t consistent.

Most assume Jaskier’s creature comforts come from the fact that he’s an omega, if they can scent it on him to begin with. Jaskier, and Geralt by proxy, don’t share the same delusion. There’s little in the way of comfort to find on the road and horseback, despite any efforts in attempting to prove otherwise. The ground is solid enough to make Jaskier’s feet ache in the evenings, and it gets even harder when he has to lay down to sleep. They have bedrolls and blankets, naturally--the North rarely gets hot except on mountain peaks and valleys, which they skirt more times than not. Jaskier doesn’t mind, because that’s what life on the road entails. There’s no standard set up to say there are any comforts to acquire to begin with, and he doesn’t search for something that’s not there. The stables, the empty houses, towers, and dilapidated estates, are more often used to scavenge rather than sleep under, and inns are a rare and particularly expensive exception to the rule. But civilisation entails hygiene, and Jaskier demands that he wash his clothes every so often, and freshen and powder them up. He’s fine bathing in creeks, he is, but even Geralt appreciates a hot bath and no interuptions.

So here they are, just a week from Flotsam, in an inn that has criminally low prices. Jaskier thinks it’s because they don’t get much in the way of customers considering there’s a rumor the establishment is cursed. Having determined it to be just that, rumors, Geralt wasn’t against abusing the opportunity.

Ten years on the road, exceptions excluded when they had to part for a few months at a time, is a long time to know someone. It’s enough time to get used to sharing close quarters and helping scrub dried blood and dirt from their skin, hair, and nails. Jaskier likes to pamper himself, that’s no secret, but he’s never really found it satisfying to pamper another person until Geralt rode into his life, stinking of horse and adventure.

With their clothes sent off to get washed, Jaskier sits in a towel on a stool next to the bath with Geralt’s hand in his lap, determined in giving him a manicure. There’s a couple of issues with that, the primary of which is that Geralt’s _hand_ is in his _lap,_ too close to his cock for him to not think of certain possibilities, but that’s, Jaskier thinks, just a part of his life. Geralt remains mount-wateringly attractive and Jaskier remains infallibly attracted to him. There’s a sort of security in finding normalcy in that--as much as he loathes an ordered life, he enjoys certain rules of the world, and comfort comes from the familiarity of his attraction. And it’s no secret either that Geralt sometimes plays his games, engages, flirts back. That, in the face of the intent coloring Jaskier’s scent, he isn’t indifferent. His scent tells it all, from the low thrum that matches Jaskier’s, to the sharp jarring spikes whenever his gaze lingers on his naked form for too long.

His company is intimately connected with the comforts of his life, and the comfort here is the inevitable, and familiar, burning in the pit of his belly that comes from such exchanges, and flare up only in instances where the territory’s uncharted.

Jaskier enjoys flirtation. He enjoys the little love games. He enjoys having lovers, as much as he enjoys sex. The best course, he always finds to be the short and sweet romances, brief but potent meetings where both Jaskier and his lover still think the best of each other. It’s best, he knows, for long romances to be dispersed with time between meetings, so that neither gets bored. And if he shall be refused, then Jaskier will mope, because it is only appropriate, and pine, because it’s what the lady deserves--and in an appropriate amount of time, Jaskier will get over his self-induced heartbreak and find another to fill the void. That isn't difficult. People are so very different to each other, and Jaskier has found that, despite their many failures, he does love humanity. It’s not difficult to love the traits of beautiful faces, of raven locks the same as blond ones, of dark eyes and green ones too, meadows and deep river valleys, of rose and burgundy lips, of skins: pink, pale, rudy, rich, brown.

Jaskier was fifteen when the first love games started. The first ones, as expected, were the hardest ones. He fell in love, and thought he’d die when she looked cross with him, bored, and he still pursued her. It’s then that he realised what the games truly were. Getting attached was, and remains, no good. Fun, entertainment, that is the goal. Emotions are brief, strong, and disappear just as easily.

But he’s never really had a friend like Geralt. He’s aware of these games, and he isn’t opposed to entertaining a lady for a night or so, to sate her curiosity or appetite, but he doesn’t truly engage and has no wish for frilly words. Jaskier doubts he’d appreciate any such games between the two of them. Jaskier wouldn’t either.

After ten years certain pretenses fall away. Geralt knows him like nobody else does. There’s no novelty, no curiosity, no surprise. They have known each other too long. His emotions are less explosive and more fond and mellow, withstanding the stretch of a decade, and the time when Jaskier left only to see that he could. In the end, he’d hate to force himself to leave Geralt’s company. Better, Jaskier thinks, not to mix poisons. Though, of course, that wouldn’t stop him if Geralt made a genuine offer, consequences be damned.

A more practical issue is the fact that getting blood from under fingernails is difficult, which is why he has a little brush with him for it, and a whole slew of equipment including files, small scissors, and pliers. Geralt’s nails are sturdy, and not in a manner of speech-- they’re thicker than his own, tend to grow pointy and sharp, and threaten to burst through Geralt’s gloves on the off-chance he remembers to wear them. They could easily grow into claws if Geralt ever let them go that far. Geralt doesn’t -- it’s impractical for wield his swords.

Jaskier’s fascinated, as he is fascinated with everything that’s unusual.

Geralt is, and will remain, full of little secrets hidden in the corners of his body, some of which Jaskier has the privilege of knowing, the others that will never be revealed to him. This, for example, is something Geralt did, and usually does by himself. The first time Jaskier put his hand in his lap he’d not startled as much as he lifted his head up and glared, stock-still like an animal waiting to be hit. Jaskier feels pleased that Geralt’s shoulders remain relaxed now.

It would be so easy, Jaskier thinks as he finishes off Geralt’s left hand, to climb into the bath, kiss him a little, feel these thick, rough fingers pressing inside of him. It wouldn’t take him long to get wet. Not at all. And though he knows he shouldn’t engage, he is no more invulnerable to such thoughts.

Both hands done, Jaskier stands. Creature comforts or not, he always carries shears with him, and a straight razor. Sure barbers exist, but they tend to shy away from the woods through which Geralt and he tend to travel, and his hair growing out is not a pretty picture. It needs upkeep. Perhaps it’s not something Geralt cares for, what with his long hair and oftentimes beard, but he doesn’t mind the pampering a bit. He doesn’t protest even when Jaskier rubs the soap into his cheeks, when he sharpens the straight razor on some tanned leather to get the point sharp again, or when he sets it to his cheek. Pampering, Jaskier thinks, is what makes them civilized to begin with. He swipes the blade with practiced ease.

Jaskier’s also pretty sure that he shouldn’t be the one doing this. It’s the alphas that tend to coddle omegas, offering services such as this. As he wipes off the foam to instead rub oil into Geralt’s cheeks for a close shave, Jaskeir finds it fairly amusing. They’re as far as what they should be, or what people expect them to behave, and Jaskier appreciates the humor in it. The irony of stereotypes is that of cavalry boots -- if you make one-size-fits-all, then only a small percentage of soldiers can actually wear them.

He supposes it’s an expectation of omegas to offer their neck, to be vulnerable to alphas like this. But there’s nothing particularly vulnerable about Geralt, even in this state of undress, except the little satisfied expression on his face that always, inevitably, surfaces when Jaskier has his hand on him for a little longer than usual. Jaskier likes touching him. Geralt likes to be touched, at least in this sort of manner. Jaskier just wishes he could do it more often.

When he’s finished he wipes off the razor, cleans Geralt’s face, and rubs the remainder of the oil into Geralt’s skin. It’s a nice, pleasant, soothing scent of chamomile, old and familiar. And, when working like this, if his wrists accidentally touch Geralt’s cheekbones, the sides of his face, the front of his throat--well. He doesn’t hear any complaints.

The shaving came from necessity--something Geralt let him do. The nails, that came from Jaskier’s own wishes. And now, as he takes a seat behind Geralt, brushing off his washed and wet hair, he finds another thing to busy himself with.

Geralt rumbles, low and soft, in that sort of way omegas usually do when pleased, and Jaskier laughs softly. Such a reaction always pleases him to no end. He’d exchange plenty of nights in court spent wooing people for calm nights like these.

He takes his shears, and decides to prune off Geralt’s ends.

“There’s um,” Geralt starts, sluggish and quiet whenever he relaxes like this. “Food’s still on the table.”

“You want some?” Jaskier asks, just as quietly. The loudest sound in the room is the snapping of the scissors.

Geralt makes another noise. “You should eat while it’s warm.”

“I’ll get to it,” Jaskier replies, perhaps not as honestly as he’d like it to have been.

The thing is, while his comforts and company remain as satisfying as ever, the aspect of cuisine on this side of the mountains has left something to be desired. In fact, Jaskier has pretty much found food dissatisfying since Flotsam. The only thing he finds marginally palatable, and generally less painful on his belly, are broth, apple juice, and good old friend wine. It’s not as if his figure is showing any changes so perhaps that stomach bug Geralt was on about is definitely a thing, which means that Jaskier will consult a local healer the first time they hit a village.

One of Geralt’s eyes opens, but since Jaskier isn’t in the line of sight, he’s safe from the judgment. All Geralt does is hum, as if there’s something he wants to say but couldn’t be bothered. All in all, Jaskier considers it a win.

However, days later, the farthest thing from his mind is a doctor when they trip into the next village overrun by ghouls, and eating is all but forgotten with the rotting corpses all around him. It never stopped him before, he’s always had a steel stomach, but lying to oneself is an artform.

He isn’t hungry, not in any particular manner of the word, and Geralt doesn’t push, so Jaskier leaves it be.

#### -

When it rains, Jaskier thinks, it pours. It’s not much later after ghoul village that Jaskier finds that he can’t sleep. Or rather, sleeping at night is a difficulty, one which he doesn’t find during the day. In fact, during daytime he’s positively lazy, and willing to go on laying for hours, just kneading the bed with his toes and fingers. When he does get up he’s in a haze, like after drinking too much. That haze turns into a headache, and the headache, later, turns into fatigue. When Jaskier becomes aware of that fatigue he also becomes aware of the pains somewhere in his back, and in his hip, and in his ears. People become too loud in lapses, until the headache feels like it’s splitting his mind. He becomes too aware of the food cooking on stoves, and of alcohol in taverns, scents that once would’ve attracted him, but now just make him nauseous.

If he weren’t aware of the fact that he hasn’t had a heat partner, ever, between the fatigue, nausea, and disgust towards food, he’d be certain he was pregnant. As it is, he’s hoping it’s a passing illness.

He still sings and earns coin, because during the nights he feels like himself. And yet, later, when he’s in bed, his body is racked through with shivers, with discomfort and heat and cold.

Jaskier isn’t sure what to do about it. He’s used to ignoring his problems until they go away but this one refuses to relent, just like Geralt’s gaze that becomes cogent and telling, as if trying to assess what’s wrong with him without words since he can’t needle it out of Jaskier. Something which Jaskier duly ignores, because he’s fine. He has to be.

Unlike what many assume, Jaskier is self-aware. He knows how he’s perceived, because the ways others perceive him is of his own making. It’s the Redanian way. He’s the bard, the fun maker, the flirt, the available bachelor who you take to bed for one night, either out of curiosity or out of revenge to another lover who scorned you. He is fun, uncomplicated and without obligations or connections. And in certain situations, he knows he’s the fool. He’d have taken afront ten years ago, but he knows better now. It’s easy to play the worriless fool, who, even when the ground is crumbling under his feet, proceeds to strut, unnoticing, and thus never falls.

That is who he is perceived to be, and thus to many people, that is who he truly is, from the beginning to the end. To stray from that rule, means that he breaks the illusions. You know you ought to be worried when even the fool isn’t laughing any more. But that’s not what’s desirable. That’s not what people want.

He’s made the mistake of growing attached to somebody, thinking it true love, only to be turned away. It was supposed to be fun, not true, and fun is about lies and illusions. He’s made the mistake of voicing his true opinions. He’s made the mistake of telling others his worries. And he’s paid for each. Dearly. When a fool stops being a fool, he stops having an audience.

He’s been told enough times to get a grip, and he’s been left friendless. Whatever fondness Geralt has for him, whatever has built their friendship, rests on that image. Perhaps he’s made a fool of himself in truth before, Geralt’s certainly seen him in compromising situations, and being serious in life-and-death, like when they were tied up in Posada, isn’t to be taken against him. But now? Now, he knows everything will crumble. He has to be fine, even though he knows he isn’t.

It all comes to a head about a week after that. They’re camping, and Jaskier falls asleep only around dawn, restless, nauseous, and in pain as he oftentimes is these days. His distress must be particularly potent because Geralt wakes him up in the late morning. It’s one of those sunny midsummer days, and Jaskier shields his eyes, which sting from the brightness.

Geralt, looming above him, covers him in his own shadow and says, “What’s wrong with you?”

Anyone else, Jaskier supposes, would be offended. Jaskier is, however, used to Geralt’s particular way of caring. “Let me sleep, for gods’ sake!”

The frustration in his voice is strong when he snarls, pushing Jaskier onto his back. “Stop. Lying. You’re having arrhythmia, you’re barely eating, and you’re tired all the time.”

“I’m not having a month long heart attack, Geralt,” Jaskier sasses. He sees the way Geralt’s face has grown serious and gaunt, the way his eyes have grown far too concerned.

Jaskier wants to be anywhere other than there, but he doesn’t have any strength left. He doesn’t even think he could stand now. All he can feel is his altered heartbeat, and the lies crowding his tongue, and the panic shovelling them there which sticks in his throat.

He knows Geralt’s angry. He sees it in every line of his body. He knows why too. He knows something’s wrong with Jaskier, and it’s been annoying him, because Jaskier’s supposed to be fine. Usually Geralt backs off, his face softens, and Jaskier knows how to breathe. But Geralt doesn’t back off now, and his anger calls onto Jaskier’s, and the injustice of it all--there’s a silent agreement between them after all, or so he thought, that Jaskier’s always fine and Geralt never presses, and now Geralt’s forcing him to admit to it, forcing him to terminate the very agreement that has made it possible to travel together for so long.

“Look,” Jaskier snaps, “I’ll be fine. Isn’t that what you want to hear? I’m tired, and I want to sleep.”

All that aggression seeps from Geralt’s face and turns into simple determination. “I’m taking you to a doctor.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake--” Jaskier starts, attempting to get up, because he truly does need to physcially leave this situation. But it’s true, he’s so weak he can’t even push himself up, and leaving Geralt’s shadow sends a shank of light to his brain. He groans in pain, and Geralt’s hands are there on his own that clutch his blanket.

When Jaskier looks next at him even to his pained eyes, Gerlat looks a certain sort of helpless Jaskier’s never sees on his face before. They breathe together like that, before Geralt says, quietly, “Let me. Please.”

It’s not fair, Jaskier thinks. Geralt never asks for anything, especially not from Jaskier. How can Jaskier refuse him now that he _is_ asking? He hates this hopelessness on his face, he hates the concern, simply because Geralt should be nothing else but content, though something in his belly churns at the fact that Geralt cares.

Would it really be so bad for Jaskier to let him in? It’s fear that holds those reigns, but in face of Geralt’s concern, and the sudden quiet, and softness in the air, it dissipates into resigned defeat.

Jaskier sighs. “Tried asking after one, last village. The closest one is in Ban Glean.”

That seems to alarm Geralt even more. They are nowhere near Ban Glean, having taken the road north from Hagge.

“I don’t know about human illnesses,” Geralt confesses. He sits down next to Jaskier then, still shielding him with his body, close enough to be of comfort. “When did it start?”

“In Flotsam. My stomach hurt, remember? And it just. Spiralled from there.”

Geralt rests a hand on his shoulder. That’s nice, at least. The chills go down Jaskier’s spine but don’t return to haunt him. He feels warm, and it almost makes up for his anxiety. He can’t stop picking at the blanket with his hands, and he can’t stop thinking about Geralt ditching him in the next village they come across.

“Do you think it has something to do with your heat?”

“Nah,” Jaskier says, falsely casual. “I take my herbs. You’d have smelled it anyway.”

Geralt hums. Between the two of them, they suffered exactly zero heats and zero ruts. Sex is another thing, uninformed by their cycles, but they’re both aware of the wear and tear of the lifestyle.

Geralt looks at him, his heavy hand rubbing carefully up and down his shoulder. Probably contemplating options. Jaskier is far more inclined to enjoy the petting, reaching for Geralt’s hand even as he curls in on himself, pressing his face to Geralt’s knees. Sleep threatens to take him again like this, though now it seems more like mercy, so he doesn’t have to contend with this pain.

Jaskier wishes he were back in Redania, where high end doctors were available for pay, and inclined to help, at least, for the fun of helping a witcher. A lot of things are easier in Redania, Jaskier thinks. Easier, at least, on nobility, and harder on everyone else.

Eventually, Geralt who’s let Jaskier take his hand, while still rubbing his shoulder with another--which is an indicator of just how bad he’s doing, when Geralt’s giving him physical comfort--stills. He inspects Jaskier’s hand and then he sniffs him for good measure.

Finally, Geralt says, “Where’d you get this ring?”

“What ring?” Jaskier mumbles.

“The one on your hand,” Geralt replies dryly. There’s an attempt at a joke there, but Jaskier isn’t aware he’s wearing any rings at all.

“Last time I got my hands on any was back at Langley estate,” Jaskier says, “and I sold all of them.”

He doesn’t feel Geralt tensing as much as he feels his attention turn sharp and pointed.

“Jaskier,” he says, “Look at your left hand.”

Jaskier pries open his eyes, exasperated. “I’m looking.”

“And you don’t see any ring on it?”

Jaskier squints, but just as he is about to tell Geralt off, now that attention has been brought to it, he can clearly see a ring on his index finger. A ring he was convinced, just moments ago, that he sold.

Jaskier considers this, and then, slowly, he remembers that haunted estate, and remembers the sting of the ring. He looks past his hand up at Geralt, his face, gaunt with his attention, eyes sharp but concerned. Jaskier feels like he’s in deep, deep shit. Geralt being so concerned that Jaskier can actually see it, or moreover, Geralt being so focused that he forgets to conceal it? It’s never a good thing.

Jaskier swallows around a lump growing in his throat and says, “I see it. Why?”

“Is it from the estate?” Geralt asks.

Jaskier nods, which makes Geralt sigh. But it’s a sigh of frustration rather than relief.

“Can you take it off?”

“I don’t want to,” Jaskier replies.

“I need you to take it off, just for a minute.”

Jaskier whines, and feels stuck between wanting the damn thing on his finger and not wanting to let go of Geralt’s hand. Why he’s debating with himself is ridiculous, he knows this. It’s just a ring. He knows he’s being unreasonable.

Still, he can’t help saying, “No, no, I’d rather keep it on, thanks.”

Geralt inclines his head, and takes no pause when he rips it off of Jaskier’s finger. The surprise is unpleasant, startling, and Jaskier doesn’t realise the shriek is coming from his mouth until it stops, and he clamps his hand over his mouth, startled and, perhaps for the first time, afraid.

“Magic,” Geralt hums, observing the ring. “I knew I could smell it on you.”

“What--” Jaskier tries, and when he sees no other otherworldly shrieks are coming from his throat, he swallows and continues, “--the hell was that?”

“We missed something on Langley estate,” Geralt tells him.

Jaskier jerks up, startling Geralt, who takes his hand back, and Jaskier reaches over for his pack. He still has the diary, he’s pretty sure.

“Oh no,” he says, as he flips through it. Geralt recognizes it and looks at Jaskier. “Oh no,” Jaskier repeats, flipping over to the end, where he reads, the exact same symptoms as he’s experiencing.

“He couldn’t eat, he couldn’t sleep,” he says, sounding hysterical even to himself. “Loud noises, fatigue during the day--”

Geralt sighs, and the tension in him seems to seep out. Which is a generally opposite of what Jaskier does, which is panic, then tell himself not to, then panic some more.

“Geralt,” he says, “I don’t want to turn into a blood crazy vampire monster and kill anyone.”

He grabs Geralt’s wrists because he needs to hold onto something.

“You’re not,” he says, so irritatingly calmly Jaskier wants to deck him.

“We broke the curse didn’t we? How the hell did it happen?”

“They weren’t amateurs after all,” Geralt says. “They didn’t curse their bloodline. They just cursed an object. The magic must work through it.”

“But--then everyone turned into a katakan.”

“Perhaps Lord Langley expected the curse to work immediately. Perhaps he thought it didn’t work at all and he tried to experiment. Either way, the curse worked perfectly well, and he wasn’t prepared for a nest of katakans.”

“Then--”

“Unlike ekimmaras, who are never alone,” Geralt continues, clearly not done yet despite Jaskier’s interruptions, “katakans prefer solitary lives. A nest, full of them, however? No wonder we saw that slaughter.”

Jaskier tries to breathe. Chronic pain was all well and ignorable, but this? He can’t ignore this. “What do we do?”

“First, you need to calm down. You’re not killing anyone. I’m here with you.”

He turns his hands, and grasps Jaskier’s into his, and folds them into Jaskier’s lap. Jaskier can’t help but look at their hands twined together.

“You seem too relaxed about this.”

“I know what to do about it,” Geralt says. “I don’t know human diseases, but I do know vampires, and I know curses. You’ll be just fine.”

Geralt’s confidence calls to his own, and Jaskier knows that, whatever happens, he isn’t alone. Geralt is there with him, and Geralt will fix it. Geralt will help. And Geralt’s still holding his hand, giving him comfort.

“Oh,” he says, feeling both understood, in that way only a witcher can understand people afflicted with a problem of this nature, and understood on a personal level, as if Geralt knew that Jaskier needed reassurance.

Geralt isn’t going to leave him, he realises slowly. He isn’t cross with him, because he isn’t fine. In fact, he’s relieved that it’s all out in the open now. Jaskier is woefully unprepared for that, and he doesn’t know how to address it, neither out loud or with himself, so he doesn’t.

“Are you going to destroy it?” Jaskier asks instead, nodding towards the ring.

Geralt shakes his head. “I don’t want to make another mistake. What we need is professional help.”

He considers the ring a final time before he replaces it on Jaskier’s finger.

Geralt is a particularly practical person, especially in face of a solvable problem. Jaskier finds that he can stand, if he really tries, and he can get on Roach, with Geralt’s careful and measured touch. Geralt throws his cloak over him, and so, angled away from the sun, they traverse through the thinning woods.

“I thought you were a professional,” Jaskier mumbles.

“Curses, creatures, specters, true,” Geralt says, “but this is intentional magic. A mage or a sorceress will give us better insight and provide better help.”

“I take it you know someone?”

“King Henselt entertains the Conclave of Northern Mages and the Brotherhood of Sorcerers in Ard Carraigh. He has to have a sorceress on hand. Perhaps she can help us.”

Jaskier looks at Geralt. “I know you’re a witcher, and I know I can talk my way through any doors, but that’s a king. You can’t just waltz in and ask for his sorceress.”

Geralt doesn’t look at him. He simply says, “Powerful men are all alike. They all want something.”

“And take twice as much as they give.”

“Then so be it,” Geralt says, and it’s the final word.

Jaskier sighs. After the noon hits, everything starts being easier. As the sun starts reaching for the mountains Jaskier feels the pain in his body lift, and by the time dusk is there, he feels like himself again. The nausea remains, only a little, and the pain in his bones, it seems, but he can get off of Roach and walk by himself.

It’s a nice night, all considered. It’s light outside, the moon full and hanging like a teardrop, and Jaskier can find his way through the unlit forest easily. Usually, it would be exactly this time that he’d complain they stop, or complain to get on Roach and be led through the forest if Geralt insisted they push on.

Now he stretches, feeling not unlike when he was in puberty and still growing into his feet.

“I take it my sudden and inexplicable brush with nausea during daytime has something to do with the curse?”

“Katakans are weak to sunlight. Not as extremely as you, but you’re just starting to change. If you were an actual katakan, you’d be considered a hatchling. A child. Plus,” Geralt says, meeting his stride with ease, “you can see better in the dark now.”

“I wouldn’t say so,” Jaskier says, following the slope into a goat’s path. “The moon is just very bright.”

“It’s a moonless night, Jaskier.”

Jaskier frowns, and looks up, and sees it to be true. Above the treeline, the night is dressed only in its usual sparkling indigo gown. Jaskier shivers.

“Well,” he says, feeling uneasy with himself, but not knowing how to address it. “We should try pushing as far as we can tonight. Because uh, not to be a downer, but today was a nightmare.”

Geralt hums. “Maybe it’s best that we find you someplace you can rest over the day. Caves, lodges, hunting cabins, and travel during the night.”

Jaskier nods, easy to agree to any and all Geralt’s suggestions. Whatever he may say, Geralt is definitely a professional. At least he knows where to seek help. But Geralt is always like that, ever since he met him: he always seemed to know more than he said, and when he didn’t know he learned quickly. For people such as him, long-living, unchanging, and people that they’re seeking, mages, witches, sourcresses, perhaps it all comes down to that--knowledge born of experience, and acquaintanceships made along the way.

Jaskier knows half the nobility in Redania, and still finds it enviable. Then again, Jaskier always wanted to join exclusive brotherhoods which didn’t want to welcome him, and always found them dreadfully boring when he managed it.

He wonders then, if it is for the best that he’s an outsider looking in. Then he can be nothing else but Geralt’s friend and travelling companion, uninvolved in whatever politics witchers and other beings have between themselves.

Remembering, Jaskier looks at Geralt and says, “What about you?”

“Witchers don’t have sleeping patterns or cycles. We don’t have to sleep, at all.”

Jaskier blinks. “Well that’s news.”

“It’s not preferable,” Geralt says, “but a couple hours of meditation a day can keep us alive.”

He glances up at Jaskier, then returns his gaze on the road ahead.

“So you sleep because you like to,” Jaskier says.

Geralt’s face doesn’t betray anything. In the end he says, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you prefer bathing in cold water.”

He has a point, of course.

#### -

Jaskier is fairly certain he should be panicking more. The only reason he isn’t, he’s pretty sure, is because when they find a nice empty cave, Geralt sits him down and tells him exactly what to expect from the coming changes. It’s easy to kick down the dread when faced with Geralt’s ease.

“Your senses have been changing, that’s why your ears hurt. Your body has been adjusting to the change in your meal plan too,” he explains. “Katakans are stronger than humans and you may have not noticed it, but I did when you gripped my wrist. Perhaps that’s the reason behind those bone-aches you’re experiencing.”

“Didn’t Langley shift?” Jaskier asks, unnerved about the possibility of experiencing the same.

“He did,” Geralt agrees. “Doesn’t mean you will too. He was hungry and his territory was challenged.”

“What if _I_ get hungry?”

“You’ll tell me and we’ll deal with it.”

It’s as easy as that. Any question he has, Geralt answers. Any concern he has, Geralt dispels. He’s left softly optimistic, looking forward to the journey to Ard Carraigh. They’re nowhere close to the city, not with their stilted travelling, which becomes more about finding a place to settle in before dawn than anything else.

Geralt worries, he must if his set of shoulders is any evidence, but with his calm scent and the credence Jaskier finds in his abilities, it doesn’t seem such a disaster as he is sure it rationally is.

The pain during the day increases exponentially during the following week until it crests on a particularly vicious day. Jaskier feels as if every bone in his body has been cracked, marrow sucked out, leaving nothing but hollows for air to scream through. Over the night it dissipates slowly, until it leaves nothing but a pit in his belly.

#### -

Travelling, unfortunately, doesn’t get easier. He finds himself dizzy during days--not as bad as the pain but still bad for walking on two uncoordinated legs over mountainous and rocky terrain--as if he has heat exhaustion which, Geralt informs him, is exactly right. Jaskier doesn’t feel the strength the man mentioned, especially not when he drapes himself over Roach’s back, holding onto her mane so as to prevent a painful reintroduction with the ground. Then again, Jaskier considers, how the hell would he know? Geralt himself has inhuman strength. To measure himself up to a witcher is to find oneself wanting. In more ways than one, Jaskier has to add.

“For hatchlings,” Geralt says, “one of the indicators of growth is their teeth dropping.”

Thus, Geralt has found it one of his priorities to thrust his fingers into Jaskier’s mouth to check his teeth--an otherwise attractive action, which Jaskier would make use of if Geralt weren’t so very quick about it.

Jaskier is fairly certain Geralt doesn’t understand how arousing the way he angles his chin up is, gentle but demanding, the way he pries Jaskier’s lips apart, or when he presses a thumb into his skin to check his fangs like dog’s canines. He traces the same thumb over his lips when he’s done, lingering just a moment too long, driving Jaskier to distraction. His wrist is right there during those moments, and Jaskier can smell that unmistakable mix of leather, metal, oil, and sweat that lingers on his scent. It’s musky, and Jaskier’s nose, now more sensitive, can catch it from a mile downwind. It never fails to make Jaskier twitch in his britches, and think about other things in his mouth, which inevitably earns him one of Geralt’s looks.

Despite what many can claim, scents are difficult to differentiate. Post-fight stress can obscure long-term anxiety, sexual interest can mask anger. There’s a right hierarchy to it all; the reason why sex, mates, and bonded pairs are easily distinguished first, danger, anger, agression second, and the scent of disgust third, is also the reason why Redania has a burgeoning perfume market.

Jaskier has been studying Geralt for years now, so he is privy to certain knowledge that his scent exudes. Like, for instance, he knows how Geralt smells when he’s coming back from a brothel, not exactly satisfied but definitely sated. He knows what interest smells on him, and what the warm shifting undertone means--they are, have been, and seem to still be compatible when it comes to their scents. His has always been overpowering, and Geralt’s is witcher-muted, but somewhere in the middle they’ve struck a balance. A maddening perspective now, when he can smell not only Geralt, but his concern underneath the soft interest.

Not for the first time, Jaskier wishes Geralt would kiss him and end this game, while he’s still, juxtaposingly, grateful that he hasn’t. Geralt isn’t someone who hesitates to take something he wants, and he doesn’t pussyfoot about it either--if he wants to get paid he asks for it, if he wants company he pays for it, and if he wants quiet he’s quick enough to tell Jaskier to shut up.

It’s not a question of desire, Jaskier thinks when he touches Geralt’s hand, and more of that delicious scent permeates the air between them, so it leaves Jaskier confused as to the real reason behind Geralt’s innaction.

“I’d tell you if anything changed,” Jaskier says, trying and failing to wiggle out of Geralt’s hold.

“You haven’t noticed the other changes,” Geralt challenges. It’s a fair point.

“I’m pretty sure that I’d notice abnormal growth in my own mouth.”

Despite his protests, he sighs and tilts his head up anyway, letting Geralt check. There’s a fine point between feeling warm over someone caring about you, and wanting to jump their bones. But nobody informed his dick about it. Generally, his dick remains uninformed about anything related to Geralt. Jaskier figured that out about four years back, when Geralt was sweaty, hurt, and going through potion withdrawal, and Jaskier wanted to lick him.

But being attracted to someone doesn’t mean they can’t annoy you, and this is getting tiresome. When Geralt’s done, he shifts himself enough to bite onto his thumb, and then suck it into his mouth.

Geralt watches him, quiet, but Jaskier knows him, he can smell his scent thickening with intention. Geralt curs his fingers under his chin, and presses down on his tongue. Jaskier feels a zing ride down his spine, a zing that, if Geralt does something, and soon, is going to morph into wetness between his cheeks.

But Geralt doesn’t do anything. He extracts his digit, pushes the pad of it against his mouth, as if to just feel his lips, and then retreats. Geralt’s reluctance to change at least is the same.

Nothing is ever static, not even Geralt’s slow and comfortable friendship, but change, sudden and consuming, offers only a binary option of pass or fail, a win or lose. It’s quick, and startling, exhausting, and draining. To change means to risk, and Jaskier is all about risk-taking. It’s why he keeps flirting, even though he knows the outcome, why he keeps acknowledging this tension between them, though he knows there’s too much water under the bridge, and why he finds comfort in the rejection. It is his nature to poke the devil, even though he knows he shouldn’t. Geralt keeps the status quo that they both want, _need_ really. But if Jaskier could, he’d want to know why Geralt flirts back to begin with if they both know the ultimate result, why he has yet to grow bored with it. But such questions beget questionable ideas, and he didn’t follow Geralt, silent and fuming, from Cintra’s court two years prior just to set himself up for disappointment.

#### -

Traipsing through the woods, at night, isn’t a particularly safe matter even with these recent changes. The nocturnal beasts aside--which Geralt and Jaskier can skirt around considering they can smell and hear them now--there’s always a bandit camp or another tucked away, holding men who’d rather kill them than let them walk away. Though a menace to civilized society, Geralt and he tend to avoid conflict with them if they can. But the dawn is at their backs, and Jaskier’s feeling all out of sorts again, and they’re out of time. There’s only three bandits standing at the mouth of the cave anyway, laughing about robbing a village, and Geralt takes out his sword.

“Stay,” he tells Jaskier, and draws something in the air. Jaskier can feel the wave of magic washing over him. The witcher signs were a surprise to Jaskier when he first learned of them.

The matter is sorted within minutes. Geralt doesn’t linger. He flows with practiced manner from one swing of his sword into another, brutal and unrelenting. The morning scent of dawn grows rich with blood which pools into the forest ground, splattered over the bandits’ possessions, sprayed onto the fire, the tents, the weapons.

Jaskier feels that pit in his belly twist, and then his stomach drops, such aching hunger overtaking his senses that Jaskier stumbles, and has to hold onto a tree to stay up. He’s hungry. He’s so hungry he’s nauseous from it, unsure if he could even keep it down if he could eat anything to begin with.

Jaskier is pretty sure that he closes his eyes, because when he opens them he’s not leaning against the tree anymore. He’s on all fours instead, crouching over the dismembered bodies, Geralt’s strong hand the only thing stopping him from getting to their blood.

Panting, struggling, Jaskier realises he’s saying, “You have to let me, Geralt, Geralt _please_ , it hurts, it--fuck--”

“You can’t drink it,” Geralt says, firm. He hauls Jaskier back, and in the struggle Jaskier ends up with his back pushed into Geralt’s knees and thighs. Geralt’s forearm presses into his neck, locking him in place, as Geralt looms above him.

“You’ll get sick, drinking blood of dead men,” Geralt growls, a bit of alpha seeping into his voice. Jaskier, at once, more than ever, feels pinned. Geralt never uses his alpha voice. In fact, Jaskier can count on his hand how many times he has. It’s shocking. It’s, Jaskier realises, making him wet.

Alpha voice is considered impolite in society. It raises the hackles on other alphas, annoys betas, and is about as effective on omegas as much as yelling at them is, except in circumstances where the omega is compatible with the alpha. Jaskier feels himself twitching, and, confused, hungry, turned on, and yet in pain, all he can do is whine.

“You’ll eat,” Geralt promises. “You will. I just need you to hold very still for me. Can you do that?”

Jaskier nods, despite himself, and feels Geralt’s thumb over his lips, pushing past, feels the pressure over his teeth just before he tastes sweetness on his tongue.

“Fuck,” Geralt says, ripping his finger away as if Jaskier might take it off.

Then he’s pressing his forearm to Jaskier’s lips, and Jaskier doesn’t feel like he’s in any control of himself when he wraps his fingers around it. Large bleeding gashes form under his fingers and bleed over Jaskier’s neck and doublet. Jaskier licks them, in no shape of mind to consider why Geralt’s bleeding, or why his own fingers have become dark, and long, and willowy where they bite into Geralt’s skin.

Jaskier had his fair share of bouts, fights, and papercuts, to know the metallic, tangy taste of blood. Geralt’s blood doesn’t taste like that. It smells it, certainly, but the taste on his tongue is like the first drops of schnapps after baking the grapes, freshly pressed sour-cherry juice, spiced wine, but fresh like spring water. It’s blood, but it’s more, and Jaskier forgets himself, completely subsumed and submerged into his hunger.

He doesn’t think much about sucking the blood from the wounds his fingers have made, from licking over them with a tongue rougher that his usually is, or from sinking his teeth into the flesh when it tapers off. It’s messy. He has blood all over his face, cheeks, lips, made worse when Geralt arrests his hands and keeps them firmly pinned to Jaskier’s own sternum. However the lacerations, and the bite mark he’s made, eventually close up. Jaskier breathes against the soft skin that now bears only pink, healing scars.

Reality pours in slowly, drops in a bucket, but eventually Jaskier realises that he’s still very much laying halfway in Geralt’s lap, he’s just drank blood from wounds his own hands made, and a scent of decay is around them--the fresh bodies not so fresh anymore. It’s dawn. It’s been dawn for a minute and Jaskier, despite all this, feels only a cozy sort of satisfaction of a man wanting a nap after a large meal.

He looks up, catching Geralt’s golden gaze. He wiggles his fingers, wrists still pressed together in Geralt’s strong hold, and feels his fingers have returned to normal. At least, it feels that way.

“You with me?” Geralt asks, tentative about moving.

“I’m always with you,” Jaskier mumbles back, perhaps not in a perfect intonation, but the thought ought to count.

It does. Geralt sighs, and it sounds too similar to relief rather than exasperation to go unnoted, before he releases Jaskier’s wrists.

“Can you stand?”

“Can _you_ stand?” Jaskier replies. “I--did I--are you alright? Did I hurt you?”

“Believe it or not, you’re not the first vampire to feed from me.” His hand turns, and he liberates his forearm enough to touch his cheek and jaw. “You’re a mess.”

Jaskier remains quiet while Geralt rubs his face, as if he were a child no older than three and in need of tidying up. But there’s something soothing about that, something that makes Jaskier’s mind skip over the panic of what he’s done, and dive right back into the calm Geralt exudes.

It’s that calm, Jaskier thinks, that has always attracted him to Geralt. As much as he likes making waves, it’s always comfortable to lay his head somewhere soft at times, to dive into the lake instead of just swimming on the surface. To sink down to the bottom, looking out and up, knowing he’s welcome and that he could leave any time he’d like, is to live within Geralt’s hidden heart of softness that makes him gentle when at ease.

“Just because you already went through this doesn’t mean you didn’t get hurt, you know,” Jaskier says, knowing, despite his attempt, that Geralt would never admit to it. “Did I shift?”

“Partially,” Geralt says, “Your teeth, your hands.”

“What does that mean?” Jaskier asks.

“Blood is the only thing nutritious for a katakan,” Geralt says. “The changes will accelerate now.”

He releases him so Jaskier sits up. His pack is right there, and it’s easy enough to take out the waterskin and a rag from his pack to clean up his face. Geralt’s blood has dried, but he can smell it when it mixes with water, sweet.

Jaskier feels full. He feels normal again. Normal, if hazy. The sun is doing him no favors.

Finished, he packs away the water, the rag, and turns to watch Geralt pick at the bandits’ food, still fresh. Whatever loot they had will be spent well.

But as Jaskier watches him, he realises that however composed Geralt is, Jaskier can’t be. Not because he doesn’t trust him, because he does, nor because he doesn’t know if Geralt would help him in this matter, because Geralt is actively helping him now, but because Jaskier just felt himself lose control in a serious, possibly fatal, manner.

“Jaskier,” Geralt calls but Jaskier can’t make himself approach him. He sees Geralt’s eyebrows draw together. “We have to rest, come on.”

Jaskier goes, tentatively, to the mouth of the cave. “Geralt-- what if, what if it happens again?”

“It won’t,” Geralt says, so cocksure that it makes Jaskier annoyed.

“How do you know?”

“This is the first time you’ve fed and it’s been two months since that estate,” he says, laying down his bedroll. “It was bound to happen. Now, you’ll know when you grow hungry and then we can deal with it.”

He turns to look at Jaskier. “Lay down. Sleep. You’ll feel better in the evening.”

Guilt creeps into Jaskier’s throat. All he can say is, “Thank you.”

Geralt grunts in reply, and turns away.

#### -

The thing about travelling like the two of them are wont to do is that you, inevitably, need coin. Now that Jaskier’s feeling better about existence during the day--Geralt was absolutely right, the blood made all the difference in mediating the side-effects of daylight--it’s easier to visit villages, to play for coin, and for Geralt to look for work.

There are no witcher contracts around, unfortunately, but the innkeeper says that the local lord would pay them regardless if they took on some raiders that’ve made their home in a partially dilapidated watch tower. Jaskier, who’s been feeling strange and unsettled, takes the chance to grab a drink while Geralt’s talking, and spends the next half-hour retching, which is definitely a comeuppance for every time he took the ability to drink alcohol for granted. He can’t wait to be rid of this stupid curse, and he can’t wait to eat normal, people food again.

Geralt sighs and hauls him up against a water barrel, and pushes a jug of it into his hands and says, “Slow drinks only.”

“Wine was alright before,” he complains, feeling miserable and out of sorts. Water seems to go down easily, and doesn’t come back up, thank fuck.

“Before you drank blood, yes,” Geralt agrees. “Now it knows what it needs, and is rejecting everything else.”

“How do they _live_ like this?”

“Adult katakans can eat regular food. You’ll be able to do so as well, when you’re fully shifted.”

“Right,” Jaskier says, feeling nervous about the impending, and unavoidable, changes. It’s just a matter of time until he’s--as Geralt describes it-- a horse sized bat, with long enough razor nails that they drag on the ground, a mouth full of fangs, and a near-inability to speak except to shriek.

Jaskier really isn’t looking forward to it.

Then again, Jaskier usually doesn’t go with Geralt on jobs like killing raiders either. They’re not monster contracts, and he can’t very well write a song about a witcher that isn’t doing any witchering, but Geralt gives him a look and says, “It’s a good chance to feed. And I need to keep my eye on you.”

Jaskier would have rather stayed at the village inn and played a few songs, or hollered at the moon, or whatever else katakans do. He isn’t sure. Were he afflicted by lycanthropy, he’d at least make dog jokes at his own expense. As it is, his material is slim pickings. In the end, the plan is to do this job and stay in the village for Velen, since holidays pay best for bards.

Just in case, Geralt waits until dusk to set off. They arrive at the tower about an hour later.

After spending years in Oxenfurt, Jaskier supposes he should still cling to some sort of conservative aghastness when it comes to casual violence. But Jaskier’s been with Geralt too long not to get accustomed to the fact that swords exist for a reason and that people will use them as leverage towards their own goals. Not everyone is fortunate to live in the capitals, and for every offended scholar there are hundreds of others for whom sword wounds are a fact of life rather than bragging rights from fencing clubs.

Geralt clears the first level of the tower quickly, only two guards to cut down. There’s no alarm, and so they make their way up the winding stairs in quick step until they reach the landing. That’s where the real fight begins, and where Jaskier pretends he’s part of the living scenery, merging with the wall so as to avoid being targeted. He so dislikes being attacked. Watching Geralt fight is like watching a fox enter a chicken coop--the outcome is inevitable and yet it raises his blood pressure in expectation anyway.

Jaskier isn’t afraid. He hasn’t been afraid when with Geralt for a while, but he realises it only then, as he watches the men choke on their own blood. The scent of it is intoxicating. And yet, rather than lingering, trying to feed like last time, Jaskier follows after Geralt's scent instead, stepping over the bodies to take the final flight of stairs. His mind is slowly filling with cotton as warmth sweeps all over his body, a fire lit inside him.

The third floor consists of a large room where the leader of the raiders has been waiting for them. Geralt doesn’t talk, doesn’t waste time. He lunges, urged by some invisible need, steady, strong, brutal.

Jaskier watches them fight, and wonders why he isn’t hungry. He’s not been hungry since that time, since he sapped on Geralt’s blood. His sword slashes the raider and blood sprays, its sweet cloying scent leaving Jaskier indifferent. He watches the man throw away his shield, watches him fall to his knees, submit, watches Geralt standing behind him, angling his neck up by grabbing his hair.

“You want him?” Geralt asks, and his hard eyes look to Jaskier, just waiting for his word. A shiver courses down his back, and he realises, suddenly, viciously, he’s wet. He’s wet, and he’s trembling, as the room fills with the scent of his want.

He sees Geralt stiffening, sees the way he grips the hilt of his sword, intention clear in every line of his body.

But a question is posed, and Jaskier answers, “No.”

The man is dead the next moment. Geralt, black eyed and huffing, says, “We should head back.”

Jaskier agrees, as soon as they rid the bodies of their coin. Yet, Geralt doesn’t wait for Jaskier to go down the stairs first, but presses himself up against him, stray blood on his face dangling, like bait.

Jaskier wants to kiss him and, in a maddening moment where Geralt leans forward, he thinks he will kiss him himself. But the moment stretches, and Geralt brushes past him, rushing down the stairs and making too much deliberate noise.

By the time they exit the tower, the night air has turned fresh and crisp, and it’s a nice early autumn night. They head through the forest--the quickest way back to the village. They’re circling around a rather imposing hill, when he hears a growl of sorts, a growl that he’s never heard before, and yet, the fuzziness in his mind increases at the sound of it, even as panic in his chest rises. Jaskier has never in his twenty-eight years felt like prey. Not like this.

“Something’s coming,” Jaskier warns.

Geralt draws on his silver sword, black eyes all-watching as he lowers himself in a stance, preparing for a fight. Forests are never silent but this one grows still just a moment before something bursts through the foliage, rushing down onto them from above. It’s only thanks to Jaskier’s new instincts that he manages to step back in time for Geralt to sweep his sword and wound a large bat. No, he realises, it’s a katakan. Another one. And an alpha to boot. The smell of it is unmistakable. Everyone can smell an alpha going into rut, and Jaskier realises that the only reason why it’s not on Jaskier is because Geralt’s holding it back with his magic, his sword, and his body.

It’s not an even fight. It never is. The alpha is huge, but Geralt’s still fresh from the previous fight, battle-high and quick-blooded. For others, that would’ve been a weakness. For Geralt, it’s an etude to warm up the fingers before going to the concerto.

Jaskier watches, intrigued, and with a strange sort of satisfaction, when he manages to separate the katakan from his head. The body is loud when it crashes onto the forest floor. There’s blood on Geralt’s face, splattered, and his hair is disheveled, and he’s panting. Jaskier wants Geralt to take him like that, bloody and black-eyed, press him against a tree and forget repercussions and hesitations, in favour of touch and pleasure.

When another wave of heat hits him, and he feels wetness sliding down his inner thighs, Jaskier realises why he’s been feeling off the whole day.

Geralt sheaths his sword and says, “Look, there’s the katakan’s cave right there.”

Jaskier does look, and manages a few steps towards it, before he’s halted.

“Oh dear,” he says, leaning back against a neighbouring tree. “Oh fuck. Geralt--”

Geralt is too far for it to be pleasant. His whine splits the night air, and then Geralt is there, clutching his arms.

“You smell like--”

“Heat, I know. This isn’t supposed to happen. I took my herbs. I don’t need another dose for a month. I don’t know why it’s happening.”

“Fuck,” Geralt says, and seems to have difficulty breathing. “You’re changing--the herbs might’ve failed. Or maybe they don’t even work on katakans. We need to get you to an alchemist, or a healer--”

“What?” Jaskier snaps. ”No! What if I lose it like that time? What if I hurt someone? If I couldn’t control myself while operating at full capacity, I sure as hell won’t be able to control myself during heat!”

He’s winded by the end, and feels a headache blooming with his irritation, made all the worse by the fact his body doesn’t care what Geralt is saying, but that, rather, it only cares to curl into him, and stick his nose under his chin which Geralt--surprisingly--allows.

“The alpha was probably attracted to your scent,” Geralt retorts. “And it’ll keep happening unless we either get you to a brothel, or a healer.”

Jaskier feels another wave of heat wash over him and he convulses. Geralt fought another alpha for him. Fuck. He fought an alpha, and won, and he’s here, covered in his blood, and Jaskier can _smell_ Geralt like this, taste the potency of his want, unconcealable neither by exertion nor anger or concern.

“Just stay with me,” Jaskier finally says, voice breaking where he presses the words against Geralt’s throat.

“What?”

Jaskier circles Geralt’s waist with his hands, pushing himself up against him, exposing his neck and rubbing their cheeks together to get their scents to mingle.

“There’s a perfectly useful cave,” Jaskier mumbles. “We can stay there. You can fuck me through the heat. Nobody to disturb us.”

Jaskier feels the first cramps start twisting his guts, cramps that are insufferably painful, that appear only when his body is ready, it’s ready, and it’s not being screwed and held down on a knot, not pumped full of come, and then some.

It takes everything in him to say, “Help me."

At once, he feels Geralt’s hand clamping on the back of his neck, and a rumble go through him, warning, and wanting, at once.


	2. Two

When it comes to experiencing heats, Jaskier has a handful of recollections from his pubescent years, specifically the range between 15 to 17. During those three years, his heats had lapsed in a biannual, fairly unscheduled and uneven duration, the first of which lasted for three days, making Jaskier think he was going to die, and the last of which went of for for a whole week, at which point he was determined and downright _inconsolable_ about the fact that he was either cursed, or definitely dying this time around. The last heat in particular was a vicious cycle of his body pushing out slick, preparing him for a knot that wasn’t there, and cramping in his lower belly which protested that absence.

His body was throwing a tantrum and as Jaskier wasn’t particularly interested in entertaining the childishness of such events, or children themselves, the decision was clear cut and obvious. Over the following spring he was deemed old enough by the family doctors to start taking his suppressants without fear of altering his development.

Jaskier remembers, fairly well, the fever raging inside of him. He remembers the shakes, remembers the preparation. He remembers refusing to eat, remembers nesting and rolling himself all over the sheets, scenting them, as if that would somehow summon a viable partner. He does not, however, remember the fuzziness in his mind. No, for all of his heats he was pretty much sentient, which is why it was so difficult to begin with--he was aware of every single thing his body did though he couldn’t control it.

Now, Jaskier doesn’t remember how he made this nest he’s lying in, concocted of thick wool blankets, pelts and animal skins, doesn’t know where his clothes went, or why he’s unbothered by their absence. He’s in a cave, which sounds like a good start--dark, protected, and isolated. It smells of another alpha, but it doesn’t matter, not when he rolls in the nest, imparting his scent there, which enrages Geralt enough that he pins him in place and snarls. The sound is just east of savage.

Jaskier trembles, his belly plastered into the bedding, and his ass up, on display. It’s not something Jaskier does intentionally, but when in heat it’s all about practicality. Geralt tugs his cheeks open with his thumbs, and holds him like that as he licks up the slick that rolled down his thighs, presses his tongue between his cheeks, before he pushes it into Jaskier’s twitching and soft hole, as if demanding of his body more.

The fever in his mind climbs. Jaskier doesn’t feel like himself--there are no remarks on his tongue, no instructions, no sweet words to entice or control, reassure and reaffirm. He just knows that he has Geralt between his legs, and that one of his shockingly sturdy and strong hands is pressing into the small of his back, holding him down.

Jaskier whines, low in his throat, and it’s a continuous sound, a sound of an omega in heat. He can’t help thinking about the fact that Geralt agreed, that Geralt is there with him, that he’s _preparing_ him for the mating.

He shivers, pleasure curling low in his spine as another wave of heat washes over him. He tries speaking, but it all ends up a mumbled mess. He doesn’t need to anyway; Geralt’s intentions are obvious in the way he touches him. His reservations have cracked and chipped away, leaving only the well-known, and well ignored want to swell.

Geralt is quick to add fingers inside him, thick, rough, and perfectly unyielding in the way they press inside him. Jaskier can feel Geralt’s hot breath on his ass, he can scent his own come in the air when he shakes apart, the first sweet release only making him more pliable, soft, and drunk with need. The heat, after all, isn’t so much about his pleasure. Pleasure is there to obscure the facts of the savage situation--their bodies aren’t made for a week of doing nothing but sleeping and fucking. Their pheromones do a good job of knocking them out, of concealing the pains and aches from alphas being too rough and omegas too demanding, imparting a misleading sense of satiation even after a week of no food and no water. It’s not unlike playing a man full of hookweed extract before doing surgery.

He breathes in Geralt’s thick scent, even as the man pulls away to settle behind him and grab Jaskier’s hips in a strong grip. Geralt’s voice is all alpha, when he says, “Your _taste_ , Jaskier. I could keep you on my tongue for days. You’d still be so wet, wouldn’t you?”

Geralt rubs his cock over his hole, breathing harshly, as if he takes pleasure from doing this. As if the sight of his cock on Jaskier’s ass is pushing some buttons Jaskier didn't even know existed. Jaskier is wrecked with anticipatory shivers by the end, knowing exactly what’s going to be stretching him soon enough.

He groans low when Geralt actually breaches him. He hasn’t anticipated his size, not even after the teasing, but his body needs only moments to adjust. Heat is good for that. Geralt meets no opposition as he slides home, pushing all of his cock inside him until his hips meet Jaskier’s ass. He can’t do much except twitch, squeezing just to feel him.

Geralt’s hands tighten their hold just before he snaps his hips forward. There’s no warming up to it, there’s no getting a tempo, no, he thrusts into him hard, balls deep, driving inside of him with a need they both feel. Jaskier could cry in thanks because somehow, somehow Geralt knows exactly what he needs.

The air fills with the sound of skin slapping against skin, the heat between their bodies growing until Jaskier can smell nothing else, nothing but them, nothing but Geralt’s alpha pheromones which make him dribble precome all over the blankets. He wants to lick Geralt’s scent glands, drown in his scent, but with the way he’s clutching at the blankets, a moaning incoherent mess, he can barely remember to breathe.

His attention lapses and Jaskier is sumberged into the feel-good sensation of heat sex. It catches him off-guard and he can’t protect against it; it’s something he’s never experienced before and is thus wholly unprepared for just how overwhelmingly nice it feels. He can’t believe it’s related to heat at all. He feels good, but saying that is saying too little. He feels that burning sensation of pre-orgasm pleasure enough to need it, enough to know that the next spike of heat is going to lead him to an orgasm, but not enough to avoid luxuriating in that feeling. It’s so tangible, so strong that all his previous experiences fade in comparison.

His body tenses and relaxes in lapses, as if it isn’t sure if to be desperate, or to enjoy the ride. Then Geralt bends down and pushes his nose into the crook of Jaskier’s neck, pressing against his scent glands--the smooth patch of skin on the back of his neck where bonding bites go--and the decision is ripped from his hands.

Jaskier keens as pleasure overtakes him, shaking his mind and locking his body as he comes. His eyes are wet but tears don’t deter Geralt. He licks over his glands, probably feeling Jaskier desperately trying to twitch and clamp on his cock. But Geralt’s knot has just begun to grow, and there’s nothing to lock onto yet. Jaskier tries anyway, wanting, _needing_ , to be knotted, desperate for it, the first cramps rolling down his spine.

“Look at you,” he hears, right against his ear. “You want it so much.”

Geralt doesn’t seem to pay much attention to his growing knot; he continues fucking Jaskier on his cock, shoving his knot in all the way, stretching his rim over it, and pulling out. It just sends Jaskier’s body into a frenzy, trying to lock and trying to push out slick at the same time. To do this to an omega in heat is merciless, and it drives Jaskier up the wall until he’s groaning in disappointment. He whines again because he needs it, he needs Geralt to still, he needs to lock.

Geralt’s hips don’t stutter, not even when the stretch grows more demanding, until he’s so large that taking him becomes a challenge of pleasure, want, and need. Each time Geralt fills him, grinding into his ass, Jaskier thinks that it’s the last time, that surely now Geralt will stop, only for him to pull out again. It doesn’t stop Jaskier’s body from trying to keep him inside.

“You’re trying to lock on me huh,” Geralt says into his neck.

Jaskier nods, rubbing his face against the blanket wet from his tears, sweat, and drool. “Breed me--breed me Ger, please--”

“I will,” Geralt promises, sounding fevered, as if he too is in need. “Fuck, I will, can you feel me inside you?”

Geralt grinds inside him, pressure against Jaskier’s prostate making him dizzy with pleasure. His cock twitches, desperate for release. It _hurts_ when Geralt pulls away, leaving him empty and bereft, not pushing his knot in anymore, but keeping him just on his cock. It’s torture made worse when he does wrap a hand around his own cock. Jaskier yelps, oversensitive, and the yelp turns into a low pitiful wail when he realises that he can’t escape--only move forward into his hand. Thankfully, it’s only a few harsh, brutal thrusts before Geralt pushes his knot back inside him, trembling.

“Oh, fuck,” he hears above him, and feels Geralt stilling as he comes.

Jaskier cries out, relief washing over him as sweet as any orgasm beforehand. He shakes as he comes all over Geralt’s fist, and the blankets. The fever clouds his mind then, and Jaskier’s reality lapses again.

#### -

When he comes back to himself, he’s not on his knees anymore. Instead, he’s lying pressed into the blankets, Geralt a dead weight on his back. Geralt must have shifted him while he was still out but his touch is still as heavy and possessive as before, whether it explores the soft skin over his forearms, his shoulders, or his flank. Geralt’s breath is audible where he snuffles against his neck.

Jaskier feels whatever tension was left in his body bleed out. There ought to be more comfortable positions than being pressed under some two-hundred odd pounds of muscle, but being under Geralt like this, pinned, held, touched, calms some wild part inside him, sating it enough to purr.

It’s a chopped off sound, quiet as he is unused to producing it to begin with. Geralt rumbles back all the same. He presses feverish kisses into his neck, shivering whenever he shifts his hips, grinding inside Jaskier as much as his knot will allow. He’s still swollen large inside him, though Jaskier can feel him twitching with every wave of his release.

“You smell so good,” Geralt says, mouthing and sucking on his glands.

Geralt sounds drunk, but in the best way: enough for his words to gain an honest intonation, half a whisper and half a praise, making Jaskier warm all over. It’s no wonder really that Geralt’s let himself slip, not when he’s still coming, and will be in the middle of an orgasm for at least half hour.

“Needy,” Geralt mumbles. “Horny. You always smell of want.”

Jaskier blinks a few times, feeling the slow ebb of consciousness return to him enough to reply, “That’s because I always want you.”

Geralt’s hands tighten on his hip, even as he grinds down into him, knot pushing over his prostate with such intensity Jaskier’s thighs start twitching. “Fuck. You can’t say that. Not now.”

Jaskier chuckles. “Oh, I’m sorry, is this a bad time for you? Let me reschedule when you’re not balls deep inside me, knotting me, filling me with your--”

Geralt nips the back of his neck and pushes his hips impossibly closer. “Not if you want the knot to go down sooner.”

“Why the hell would I want that?”

Geralt’s breath catches with another crest, and it’s such an unintentional, unpredictable and unexpected sound, so soft on such a rough man, that Jaskier can’t help wanting to hear it again. He squeezes around him, and feels now, more than ever, just how big his knot is. He can’t help but feel pleased about it, knowing just how full he’s going to be by the end.

Jaskier knows well enough that knotting is generally in the heat repertoire, a vicious response of their alpha bodies to omega pheromones. He knows that knots go down quickly if the omega is displeased about the proceedings. But Jaskier’s everything _but_ displeased.

Geralt huffs something that’s in a neighbourhood of a laugh. “I should have guessed you’d be like this.”

“What, knot-hungry?” Jaskier asks. Geralt hums in reply, so Jaskier continues, “Well, you might’ve found out if you fucked me sooner.”

Geralt grunts, but it’s not in agreement. This is a grunt of annoyance and exasperation.

“Look, now that we’re here and half-conscious we might as well acknowledge the fact that this was a long time coming. Definitely no puns intended.”

“Fine,” Geralt says dryly. “It’s acknowledged.”

Satisfied, Jaskier shifts to nest his head in his hands so he can glance around them. He recalls now that Geralt carried him inside the cave and Jaskier proceeded to pull down every wall and bed covering as material for the nest. The dead alpha was katakan, true, but also partially human, which means certain amenities are present such as water, if for nothing else than for bathing, a washbasin, soap, a cot. It’s a good cave, Jaskier thinks, and can’t for the life of him remember when the hell he started liking them.

His clothes are on the ground, close to the dying fire, mixed with Geralt’s since they shucked them off in a hurry. There’s nothing else there, he can’t hear anything but Geralt’s breathing, his slow heartbeat, and the occasional rumble he releases when he comes. He holds still in lapses, before the need overtakes him to grind his knot inside Jaskier, as if he can’t very well help it, and it's the hottest thing Jaskier has witnessed.

“Keep doing that and I’ll come,” Jaskier says, panting.

Geralt grinding against his prostate has made him hard, and he both wants to touch himself, _and_ try to survive another seven days of this. But between Geralt’s knot and his mouth still teasing his neck, the immediate pleasure wins, just like all Jaskier’s bouts with temptation end with him giving in. With the way his cock is pressed against the blankets, he needs only to buck his hips to feel immediate relief.

Geralt groans, and Jaskier turns his head to watch how Geralt’s hip bones jut out and create two perfect lines, the way his belly clenches and unclenches, the way his arm muscles jump. Jaskier feels that familiar heat go down his spine, and if he weren’t stoppered up on a knot, he’d be leaking slick right about now.

Geralt doesn’t whine, it’s not high enough, but it’s a pained sound--something gut-punched and breathy. He trembles all over again as he drives his come into Jaskier, mouth clamping onto his shoulder.

Jaskier fucks his cock into the blankets, wanting both to come, _and_ to enjoy this sort of sane coupling if for a moment more, knowing that the heat will take away his reason soon enough. He’s never thought he’d see Geralt like this--frantic with need. With the way his knot’s nudging his prostate over and over again, Jaskier is certain it won’t be coming down. Ever. It’s too big, too swollen, but he wouldn’t mind just being held like this and filled until he’s leaking.

“Whatever you’re thinking--” Geralt says against his ear.

”Touch me,” Jaskier interrupts, feeling overcome.

Because that’s the crux of it all, Jaskier thinks. It’s not just his heat that’s making him enjoy this, no, it’s just amplifying something already there. His tastes, and his heat have aligned, to make him lose his goddamn mind.

Jaskier whines when Geralt lets up, but he lifts Jaskier just enough to wrap his hand around his cock. He starts moving quickly, rough enough that Jaskier comes from it in minutes with a sharp, cut-off gasp. He trembles, clutching at the blankets beneath him, shivering because Geralt continues touching him through it, until it’s too much.

Jaskier pants, relaxing again when Geralt releases him. He lapses into silence, because while the heat has dissipated he can still enjoy the comfort of his nest, of another body pressed into his, and a knot inside of him.

However, it’s impossible not to be aroused by Geralt touching him, so it’s a low burn, everpresent. This attraction between them is a magic loop--Jaskier grows needy at the sight of Geralt’s pleasure, and Geralt’s pleasure is drawn out by his own.

Eventually, they go at it again. It spends the time well enough, made even more pleasurable by the fact that they don’t need to do this. It’s not necessary for Geralt to make him come so many times, it certainly doesn’t help him any, but it seems it’s something he wants to do irregardless of those facts.

By the time Jaskier feels Geralt’s knot going down, he’s come more times than he can count, high on pleasure, licking Geralt’s fingers that press on his tongue, tasting his own slick on them.

“I’m going to test the tie,” Geralt warns, and Jaskier nods.

It’s easy for Geralt to manipulate his hips up, his knot pulling on the tie just barely before he’s slipping out of Jaskier for the first time in an hour. At once Jaskier feels come sliding down his thighs, and, just as quickly, feels Geralt’s fingers drawing through the mess, and stuffing it back inside him.

Jaskier shivers. After a knot, two fingers inside him should be nothing but he’s grown sensitive. Every touch has him twitching. Geralt doesn’t stop. He holds him on his fingers like that, until Jaskier can feel another wave of his heat crash over him, no doubt brought forth by Geralt’s hands.

It’s too soon, Jaskier thinks, even as his thoughts muddle and he can’t help spreading his knees and arching his back.

“Already,” Geralt says, sounding both surprised and pleased. Jaskier can’t help liking the fact that now he knows what Geralt sounds like when he’s turned on.

The thought is taken away when Geralt shifts behind him, and he holds him like that, spread, fucking his two fingers inside him with rough, quick and precise thrusts. Jaskier can’t hold still, not like that, not when he’s just come and Geralt’s pushing on his prostate again, not when he’s soft and yet feels an overwhelming need to be fucked and filled, like he’s not had sex in weeks.

He pushes himself back onto Geralt’s hand, chasing satisfaction even though he’s shying away from the ache when they’re inside him. It’s a fine line between pleasure and pain, and Jaskier’s never straddled it so viciously before.

“Inside--Inside me, Geralt--fuck,” Jaskier gasps.

He can feel Geralt rumbling against his back. “Your heat always this intense?”

Jaskier whines when Geralt pulls his fingers out. He feels _this_ close to crying, the combination of pleasure and pain mixing with anticipation and twisting in his gut, expectation of previous knotting being denied driving him up the wall.

“Hmm?” Geralt prompts, tugging his cheeks open to watch as come dribbles out of him, mixing with his slick. It’s perverse, and it makes Jaskier hard.

When Geralt puts his tongue there, pressed against his hole, Jaskier chokes out, “Yes, no. I don’t know. Not like this--”

The air leaves Jaskier’s lungs when Geralt laps up the mess he’s made, and licks inside him, tasting himself on Jaskier’s skin. His knees begin to shake. It feels too good.

“--Geralt I need you inside me, please, please, I can’t--”

He feels the rumble right there, where Geralt’s mouth is pressed against his hole. But no sooner than he’s felt it, Geralt moves away, and Jaskier finds the world spinning as he’s pushed onto his back.

There’s something about Geralt’s face when he grabs Jaskier thighs and fits himself between them, something stormy, incited and beastly. Something that’s all alpha, that can’t be calmed only appeased, and Jaskier shivers from it, feeling wetness between his cheeks. Yet, as it comes over his expression it fades, packed away and hidden, so it’s only Geralt’s eyes that pay tribute to it.

Geralt huffs, his fingers kneading the softness of Jaskier’s thighs.

“I’m trying to be good, alright?” Geralt tells him. “I know you like pushing my buttons. Don’t.”

Jaskier realises, quite suddenly, that he’d caught a glimpse of Geralt out of control, Geralt packed away under all of this considerate, lovely rationality. Jaskier also realises that he wants to see it again. Still, he nods to appease him.

Geralt hums and plops down next to him, pulling Jaskier along until he’s laying on top of the man. Jaskier gathers himself enough to get up on his knees and properly straddle Geralt, and when he’s already there he gives in, reaching back and sinking on top of his hard cock.

He shivers. Geralt feels completely different inside him like this. The way he presses against his walls is promising--Jaskier just needs to find the proper angle. And the view--dear gods it’s worth it. Geralt’s spread out under him, clutching his thighs, and he’s looking at Jaskier as if he wants to ravage him.

Incentivized, he leans down, and does something he’s wanted to do for ages. He presses his lips to Geralt’s.

Truth be told, he’s thought about kissing the man plenty of times, especially when he would do something particularly endearing like soften his voice to speak to a kid, force out at least a semblance of a laugh, or just smile, whatever the reason for it, be it Jaskier acting like a fool or being made a fool. But he always thought it would be there and gone. Just a brush of lips. Geralt is, in many ways, conservative with his emotions, and Jaskier couldn’t find a realistic image in his mind where Geralt gripped him tight, and kissed him properly.

The softness of what he imagined is distinctly juxtaposed to reality. There’s no question about it; Geralt lays a hand on Jaskier’s face, and he opens his mouth to let Jaskier’s tongue inside, and sweetness is forgotten when faced with ardor. The kiss is filthy, wonderful, exhilarating. Jaskier can’t help but moan into it. He regrets not doing it sooner.

Geralt doesn’t let go, which comes as a surprise. Jaskier never particularly imagined Geralt liking kissing. Yet, he kisses back eagerly, as if he has needed it, wanted it, yearned for it just as long as Jaskier has.

Whatever caution left, Jaskier throws to the wind. Instead, he mellows on top of him, sighs his relief between kisses, and lets his fingers touch Geralt’s face, his cheeks, temples, hair.

Jaskier never had a heat partner, but he’s never had a partner so enthusiastic about kissing before either. Not when their cock is inside Jaskier already. It’s endearing in all the best ways, and it just makes Jaskier want to do it more. But it’s not just the feeling of Geralt’s lips on his own which has Jaskier wanting to kiss all of his affections into his mouth, feed him adoration until he’s full. It’s the feeling of his warm breath, the scent of him, so close, present, strong. It’s the touch of his hands, one of which is curled on the small of his back, the other which cups Jaskier’s face. It’s the sight of him: the want in his eyes, raw and unmistakable, the confusion that crowds his sweaty brow when Jaskier doesn't return to kissing him, the irresistible gentleness that allows him to grow pliable, and allow Jaskier to touch and move him as he pleases.

The yellow of Geralt’s eyes fades like that while they do little else but kiss and grind, until it’s but a ring around two dark pools which speak less of urgency and more of comfort.

“There you are,” Jaskier says, touching his temples, and feels a smile overwhelm his lips. It’s kissed off of his face quickly, as if Geralt wants to keep it just for himself.

Jaskier isn’t sure if it’s the kissing that enflames his heat again, or if it’s just the cycle doing it’s duty, but Jaskier feels his mind leaving him all over again as shivers rack down his spine until being still is impossible.

The kiss breaks as Jaskier sits back up. Like this, Geralt’s completely inside him again, and Jaskier shivers with need. He rolls his hips, once, twice, grinding down at first, before Geralt’s hands bracket his hips. Jaskier finds purchase against Geralt’s belly, and rocks down. The noise has Jaskier’s hole clenching around him, so Jaskier lifts his head up to watch as he begins to ride him.

It’s not overly difficult to find a good angle riding Geralt simply because in heat all angles are good as long as there’s a cock inside him. Pleasure is never far behind, and he already feels his own cock swelling. However, the main attraction of this position is the fact that he has Geralt under him, that Geralt’s letting him do this, at his own pace, even though he could roll them around, push him into the sheets, have him in any position he likes.

Geralt’s face is good at concealing fear, hatred, concern, as much as it’s good at concealing happiness. It’s a balance, Jaskier thinks. Annoyance comes from a long stare and an expressionless face, and amusement comes from the same stare coupled with a slight crook of his mouth, and a few crow’s feet that crown the corners of his eyes. Anger is the only obvious thing.

Perhaps, Jaskier thinks as he drives himself on Geralt’s cock and watches his stomach fluttering with effort to abort any movement, that’s the only thing Geralt has let himself truly express. But there’s no anger on Geralt’s face now. There’s only want in the heat of his gaze, and a certain sort of helplessness in his furrowed eyebrows as he groans his pleasure into the air. His mouth is open, inviting, and sucking in, Jaskier realises, scents of their coupling so he can taste them on his tongue.

Jaskier wants to kiss him. It’s a strange need in the middle of his heat cycle.

Geralt’s knot swells under him. Jaskier can feel it right there, and unlike him, he has no control and no presence of mind to tease himself on it. Being fucked on a knot, like Geralt did to him, is a delicious yet maddening frustration, and not something Jaskier can do to himself. So instead, he rides the rest of Geralt’s cock until the knot has swollen full.

Jaskier’s shivering, and his chest is starting to hurt, like it has every other heat, and he feels the first warning of oncoming cramps. He knows he should do something about it, technically, but Geralt’s expression is making him want to linger however long he can. His grip is harsh, true, and there will probably be bruises, but now the need in his face is unmistakable.

“Jaskier,” he says, pleading, yet baffled at the same time.

“Hmm?” Jaskier asks, even as he lifts one of his hands up to his chest, trying to massage away the pain. It’s not a particularly practical way of solving it. But this sort of ache feels good too, it feels amazing, especially when he scratches his nails over his nipples.

“Jaskier, get on my damn knot,” he growls. It makes Jaskier laugh, even as he slows down his hips.

“You gonna come? You can’t hold it can you, not when you’re knotting,” Jaskier mumbles, grinding down on the knot.

Geralt’s breathing is quick, his voice frustrated, and as much as Jaskier wants the knot inside him, he also wants to see more of this.

“Ah, no. You’re going to come, and you don’t want to do so unless your knot is inside me. Unless you’re sure to breed me, isn’t that right?”

Jaskier rights his hips, then sinks down onto Geralt’s knot.

Geralt moans, very nearly whines until it gets lost into a growl, his nails biting into Jaskier’s skin. Jaskier feels feverish with pleasure.

“That’s good though,” he pants, “I want that too.”

He grinds down on his knot, but he doesn’t need much, just it rubbing against his prostate to spill over Geralt’s belly. It’s not an overwhelming orgasm, it’s not mind-melting, but it rocks through him all the same, leaving him weak, pliant, and squeezing around Geralt until he’s ready.

It’s a surprise when Geralt gets an elbow under him, lifting himself up enough to kiss Jaskier. Geralt moans into his mouth when he comes, and pulls away to catch his breath, pressing instead their cheeks together, pushing his nose against Jaskier’s temple, and into his hair. Jaskier holds still, letting the first shivers pass through him, feeling as exhausted as Geralt looks.

“Come up here,” Jaskier moans, shifting his legs.

Geralt doesn’t question it, just sits up with Jaskier in his lap, legs curling under him, while Jaskier’s thighs wind around his thick waist. Geralt wraps his hands around him, as if to keep him still, and Jaskier’s urgency to kiss him is finally satiated.

He melts into Geralt as he locks around his knot, heat overwhelming him and sending him to float in that feel-good state. When he’s not coordinated enough even to kiss, he presses their foreheads together, just so he can breathe, before he ends up resting his head in the crook of Geralt’s neck, sapping on his potent scent.

Geralt holds him, both hands on his back, and he shivers, cut-off groans and moans littering the air between them. At that moment it feels like they’re one being. He can feel Geralt’s breathing like it’s his own, and his scent is beautiful, delicious, and he’s soaked in because Geralt’s been rubbing his wrists and hands all over his body, marking him up.

It’s heat, true, it’s heat, but Jaskier feels incredibly fortunate to have ended up with Geralt despite the circumstances. Holding each other like this isn’t a matter concerning heat as much as it’s a mating display, despite which Geralt’s not pulling away, not even when Jaskier licks over his scent glands and sucks on them, just to feel him shivering all over.

“Beautiful,” Jaskier says, because Geralt really is, and he can’t think of a better word just yet. “You’re beautiful. Perfect. I feel so good. Thank you.”

“Don’t,” Geralt says. There’s something sharp in his voice that mellows when he adds, “Not like heat partnering you is a hardship on my part.”

Jaskier chuckles at the obvious, if clumsy, joke. He thinks they're both pretty out of it if he isn’t reaching to make an even worse one.

“You could’ve refused.”

“No.” Geralt says, “I couldn’t.”

There’s something so determined in that, so convincing, that it makes Jaskier think that while they’ve been dancing around this attraction of theirs, he never stopped to inspect the depth of the water. He only ever glanced at the shallow ponds the tide left behind to mirror his image.

Jaskier tries thinking back, and finds that he’s always felt attracted to Geralt, and that it’s perhaps because of that, and the compatibility in their scents, that he’s never considered not feeling like that. Most of their friendship _has_ been Jaskier skipping over those shallow pools in favor of staying in the sun a little while longer. Now, he wonders if he should have been chasing the receding waves instead. Geralt is his friend, but nobody who kisses him like Geralt kisses him only feels friendship back.

“So you’re finally fussing up,” Jaskier mumbles.

Geralt sighs. “I thought we already acknowledged everything.”

“You realise we could have been doing this the entire time? I could have been riding your knot all past fourteen heats.”

Geralt groans. His cock, inside Jaskier, twitches.

“You get your heats bi-annually?”

“So not the point.”

Geralt hums. He presses his nose into Jaskier’s neck, and his tongue brushes over his glands, making Jaskier’s whole body twitch. It’s not a willful action, but it’s a delicious one. After all, Geralt is an alpha, and he’s knotted him, tied him down, and the only thing left to do is bite him. Every alpha has their fangs just for that, as much as it can be a dick measuring contest to see whose teeth are bigger. Geralt, who Jaskier has seen eating raw meat like it’s nothing, and who has teeth sharp enough to tear fabric, is pretty much the ultimate candidate.

“I don’t know,” Geralt says, a teasing tone in his voice. “Seems pretty relevant to me now.”

Jaskier’s mind wanders away immediately, and he thinks of the future and doing this all over again. If he were in his right mind he’d remember that this was a forced issue, that it took him by surprise, and that there’s something better to worry about than getting a dick inside him. But, as it stands, his head is heat-addled and the only pertinent thing is having Geralt with him.

“Bastard.” Jaskier huffs. “It’s not the point. The point is why? Why couldn’t you just accept any of my advances until there was a proverbial sword to your throat?”

“I didn’t think it was on the table.”

Jaskier blinks. “Are you stupid?”

“You like attention. You like, as you put it, different flavours of people.” He mouths over Jaskier’s glands then, sucking on them. “You flirt with everybody. You love them, and then you leave.”

That, Jaskier thinks, is true. He does indeed flirt with pretty much anyone he finds attractive. Which isn’t a bad point at all, and he’d have words for Geralt, more serious words, if he weren’t sucking on his glands.

The attention Geralt’s paying his neck is as telling as it is distracting, so all he ends up saying is, “You want to bite?”

He’s petting Geralt’s hair and the side of his face, so he can feel Geralt stiffening.

“Don’t,” Geralt says again, in that voice of his, as if Jaskier’s breaking some unsaid agreement. “You’re in no state to even consider that.”

Jaskier laughs. “That’s all I’m thinking _about_ , Geralt. You’re _knotting_ me.”

The thing about mating to begin with, Jaskier thinks, is that it started with people going into heat together and fucking like crazy. Alpha’s bite, a long time ago, meant a sort of brand of ownership. These days, however, much has been dispelled about it. The real use of the bite, of an alpha injecting their venom into an omega’s scent glands is the obvious one--to change their scent, and mix it with their own. It’s a guarantee paid forward that the same omega will come back to them for their next heat. It doesn’t change the omega’s behaviour, per se, it just makes their body, this heat-mind of theirs, seek out someone familiar who already took care of them once. But the bite, eventually, fades if not renewed.

Jaskier thinks of fates much worse than sitting on Geralt’s knot bi-annually. He says as much, which, surprisingly, makes Geralt huff out a laugh. “You’re impossible.”

Rather than biting, Geralt pulls him forward so Jaskier has to hook his chin over his shoulder, scenting him like that, their necks touching.

The other kind of mating, the mating that comes after a few heats and ruts spent together when their cycles align, when there’s an obvious emotional connection--then it becomes about courting. About providing. About saying, ‘ _Look, it’s not heat and I’m still here for you.’_

Mated pairs usually end up bonded in the end, though bonding is not as simple as just having sex or loving someone. Bonded pairs, or so Jaskier’s read, can feel one another miles away. He’s read accounts where distance hurts. But, as much as it’s represented in old tales and songs, bonding has only ever been a romantic ideal, not a reality of their practical human existence.

Marriage doesn’t always mean bonding, certainly not in Redania where politics have to do much with it, and certainly not anywhere else, but it’s a marriage of its own kind. You don’t need rings or a ceremony, when you can just smell like your partner.

The bite, in comparison, means very little. It’s just a foot in the door.

“It figures that the one time the herbs fail, you end up partnering me. And I seriously don’t see anyone competing with all of you,” Jaskier says.

There’s something smug in Geralt’s voice when he replies, “Good.” Then a moment later, he says, “When’s the last time you did have a heat partner?”

“Didn’t. Just you.”

He feels Geralt shifting some, and his pheromones heat up so much that Jaskier can actually feel his whole body reacting to them, from his chest aching, dick twitching, whole clamping around Geralt’s cock.

“Your knot is going down,” Jaskier comments.

There’s something uncertain in him that doesn’t want to pull away from Geralt’s embrace, small and quiet, that’s overshadowed by something else that tells him that his heat has just started--there will be times to be held like this however much he wants.

He’s in his right mind again which means that he can feel discomfort, especially in his belly. He pulls away from the embrace, and sees something in Geralt’s expression that makes him regret it. However, like this, he can cup his cheek, brush his thumb over his lips, and do what Geralt’s been doing recently to him--push his lip up, only to reveal that his alpha fangs have dropped.

“Ah,” Jaskier says, pleased. “So you do want to bite.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, taking his wrist hostage, “I’ve wanted to bite you the moment I smelled your heat. Doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”

Jaskier hears that as a challenge. The discomfort inside him grows further however, and as smug as he is, as willing to push, to challenge this idea of Geralt’s, he also reflexively shifts his hips to see if he can get more comfortable.

The thing about the heat is that it conceals any aches and pains. Curious, Jaskier reaches down to touch the place of discomfort, to see if he can knead out a little of the pain as he did with his chest, but when he touches his belly he freezes. He looks down between them where his hand is resting, and where his belly has grown since before. There’s a swell. HIs hand curves over it, and it’s unmistakable.

He shudders there on the spot, and his heat returns with a vicious vigor, incited by the visual. It overtakes him, makes him whine, makes him ache completely, thoroughly, when Geralt’s hand descends there too.

“Look what you did to me,” Jaskier murmurs, voice clicking. “I’m swollen up because of you. For you.”

He can feel Geralt shivering, and then there’s that growl, dangerous, warning, absolutely maddening. He looks at his face then, and there’s something absolutely carnal, something savage in his face, and Jaskier, at once, wants to be completely wrecked by him. He wants to be ruined.

“Fuck me,” Jaskier says. “Use all your strength, fill me up more. Make it bigger. Geralt, breed me--”

His voice leaves him with a yelp, as he’s rolled over onto his back. Geralt’s scent doesn’t change, it stays warm, spiced and sweet--he smells like an alpha in a rut, and Jaskier’s thighs quiver. There’s no stopping this time. Savage, Jaskier thinks, and shivers with delight.

“Put a pup in me,” Jaskier says, knowing what he’s doing. After all, he’s always pushed buttons and never known when to quit.

Geralt snarls, grabbing his thighs under each knee and bending him in half. His knot is already swelling, which is definitely a first, but he doesn’t seem to care as much as he cares to do as Jaskier asked, and use his full strenght, his witcher strength, to hold his legs open and sink between them, to fuck into him, and keep doing it, quickly, deeply, until even Jaskier can feel an ache of pain, just a little, just there to spice up and sweeten it all.

He clings to Geralt, hands wrapped around him, even as he feels himself slowly losing his mind, giving in to nothing but the heat as Geralt ruts into him, desperate, needy, and so fucking beautiful. Jaskier knows he’s moaning, knows he’s loud, knows that, if they’d ended up in a tavern or a brothel, he’d be made to shut up, but he can’t help but feel it, can’t help the sounds, not when Geralt’s ravaging him, fucking him on his knot again and building that frustration as he pops it in and out, until Jaskier’s sobbing.

The heat of their bodies is overwhelming, stifling, and makes their scents, combined together, all the more dizzying. Jaskier’s hands slip on Geralt, perspiration crowning his forehead, his shoulders, his back where Jaskier holds him, so instead he reaches down for his ass, taking two wonderful handfuls of it as Geralt thrusts into him.

Geralt licks his collarbones, chasing his sweat, licks his cheeks, his tears of frustration. It’s so good, Jaskier thinks, it’s so good. There’s no floating in pleasure, not this time. He’s there already, just at the crest of it, looking at the precipice, and when Geralt forces his knot inside him one last time, Jaskier comes between them, shaking and unable to stop.

Geralt comes soon after, but seems to pay it no heed. He keeps grinding inside of him though it must be as overwhelming to him as it is for Jaskier, though it’s a third round and if they continue like this they’re going to be dehydrated, and absolutely exhausted. Still, Jaskier can’t find it in himself to complain. Geralt makes Jaskier come on his knot again, until there’s nothing left to spill anymore. The dry orgasms that clutch his body after that are forced out of him, as pleasurable from the heat as they’re painful from the overstimulation.

His mind gives out sometime after that, though Jaskier becomes aware of it only when he comes back to himself, and the shivering has subsided some. Geralt’s let his legs down, which means he must have lost a couple of minutes.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, touching his face, still brushing away the falling tears, and Jaskier doesn’t think he’s ever seen him this wild before.

He looks somehow unguarded, his eyes wide, his mouth open, panting, but tugging up, as if it isn’t sure if to smile or not. He looks almost pleasantly shocked, Jaskier thinks, until he kisses Jaskier so sweetly that he can’t think much about anything at all.

Even like that, Geralt doesn’t stop grinding inside of him, and even when the big shivers subside in his body, they remain in his legs, which twitch around Geralt’s hips. He’s coming inside him all over again. He isn’t sure how much more come Geralt has to give, but if he does end up making his belly bigger, Jaskier thinks he’s going to lose it.

Jaskier doesn’t realise he’s whining until Geralt’s mouth is on his forehead and he’s saying quickly, vehemently, “It’s alright, it’s okay. Jaskier--I’m--fuck--I think I’m rutting and--”

Geralt shivers then, and moans right against Jaskier’s mouth.

His heat, which seemed so thoroughly beaten back by Geralt’s ministrations, rises up, but not as overwhelming as before. It’s just there, in the back of his mind. It’s there, Jaskier thinks, held back by the promise in Geralt’s voice.

His heat must have triggered Geralt’s rut. And if Geralt’s rutting, then Jaskier knows any promise of this ending up civilly, any clinging to a piece of mind, anything that isn’t just fucking, is going to be impossible. Jaskier twitches around Geralt’s knot.

Alphas in a rut, generally, care little about anything else than breeding their partner. Jaskier, who demands it, who can’t do without it, shivers with anticipation. He wants to be filled, rutted, used, and knotted until he’s little more than a drooling mess.

“Don’t hold back,” he tells Geralt. “Bend me, move me, hold me down, I want it all Ger, I want everything.”

Geralt watches him, petting his hair, and groans. He’s already gone, Jaskier thinks. His eyes are already glazed over. Far, _far_ gone.

He kisses Jaskier then, and doesn’t grind as much as he’s constantly testing the tie, as if he can’t wait to knot him again.

Jaskier feels something leave his mind then, some sort of last dregs of inhibitions he’s had, and he moves his head to the side, presenting his neck.

Geralt rumbles out, sounding pleased. He licks his neck, kisses it, and moves down to lick over his collarbones, and ends up pressing his large fingers into his chest. He massages his tits like that, mouth licking over the nipple that he isn’t abusing with his nails. Jaskier’s chest aches. He _has_ to watch just because it’s Geralt doing it, and he never thought he’d ever see his spit-slick and bitten, red mouth desperately sucking and mouthing at his tits. His hands can’t seem to leave the swell of his belly alone either, as if he can’t quite believe it’s there. Jaskier already feels shivery again, heat unable to be held back anymore.

Geralt tests the tie again, even though his knot is nowhere near down, and then he’s grabbing Jaskier’s legs and bending him again. When his knot pops out, Jaskier feels a surge of come spilling out and running down his skin. Then, Geralt rams his still-hard cock back into him, knot and all, and Jaskier screams.

“Geralt,” he says, a sob climbing up his throat, “I’m going to lose my mind.”

Geralt touches his cheek, and laughs, mouth open, teeth on show, beautiful, perfect, completely frantic and crazed.

“Lose it,” he says, wild. “I’m not letting you go. Not until you’re full of me.”

Then he starts fucking him all over again, and Jaskier feels safe enough to shake apart.

#### -

The heat takes what little presence of mind he’s got left, and jumbles it up, until the next couple of days are nothing but a memory of Geralt’s hands on him, of his voice, soft in his ear, promising filthy things. And even that ceases eventually, until they’re nothing but a heaving pile of limbs and pleasure, trying to get each other off.

Jaskier’s belly swells more, until it’s painful. Still, he can only make a little mournful sound when Geralt moves him off his knot and lets it leak out over the blankets, and then flips him over to eat him out and lick him clean.

Jaskier is pretty sure they sleep, but it doesn’t feel different to passing out; he still wakes up with Geralt’s cock inside of him, knotting him from behind. It’s a fucking wonder to wake up to an orgasm, and Jaskier would tell him that they need to do that again sometimes when they can appreciate it, but words don’t make sense anymore. Nothing does.

Geralt doesn’t leave the nest for a moment. Heats, he knows, aren’t supposed to be like this. Ruts too, aren’t supposed to be this strong, that even Geralt is forced to lose his inhibitions and take little care of himself. Jaskier would be concerned if he were himself.

However, Geralt says, “Want to keep you like this, right around my knot forever. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

And Jaskier can’t help but sink into the comfort of that promise as he groans his agreement. He nods, breath barely forming the litany of tiny, fucked out ‘ _yes_ ’s. Geralt squeezes his hip and pushes him down onto his belly. His nose presses against his glands, and Jaskier whimpers. He’s sensitive now, especially there.

Geralt’s tongue laves over the smooth skin and on the same spot pain blooms just a moment later. Jaskier thinks he screams but his ears pop, and when he can hear again he only recognizes his own raw, hoarse voice sobbing with relief and feeling.

Geralt holds him on his teeth for a small eternity, until the pain metamorphosizes into pleasure when the venom hits his system. Yet, it’s only once his scent has begun to change that he pulls them out.

Satisfied in that sort of primal way Jaskier never heard from him before, Geralt says, “There we go.”

#### -

Consciousness swims back to Jaskier with the certainty of a fish who’s already been caught on a lure once, and is tentative to repeat the same mistake again. That is to say it comes in waves, considering, observing, before finally falling for it. Jaskier cracks one eye open. He looks at the wall of the nest, not yet destroyed but getting there, and beyond it, at the walls of the cave. He can’t see the entrance, not really, but he can smell the fresh gust of wind from the outside, carrying pollen, the scent of sun-kissed leaves and earth.

The heat has retreated. Jaskier can’t feel it anymore, not in his mind or his body, except the lingering effects--nothing’s hurting just yet. The heat he _can_ feel is the one of Geralt’s body tucked behind his own, warming his back, and the pleasant cosiness of being covered with pelts. Geralt’s breath is soft in his ear, barely there, easily overwhelmed by the sound of Jaskier’s heartbeat in his own ears speeding up when he catches the scent of them together.

He reaches down and touches his belly. He thinks he imagined the size of it from the last time--now, it’s barely swollen up. Geralt’s inside him, still, knotted. He’s refused to let him sleep any other way.

The words ‘too much’ don’t exist in heat. It’s never enough. Being satiated, Jaskier thought, was an impossibility. And yet, as he lays there, he feels exactly that. Sated, satisfied, and sane enough to know the impossibility of it.

Jaskier shifts, barely, and lets Geralt slip out of him, feeling the trickle of come slide down his skin. He’s tucked under Geralt’s chin, pretty much, his hand thrown over Jaskier, covering him, and Jaskier can feel the bruises now. Geralt has been using his full strength to rut. Jaskier wonders if he’d have dislocated or broken anything if he were human.

The thought amuses him, and he turns around, despite feeling cozy, because he feels like he hasn’t seen Geralt’s face in too long. Plus, like this, it’s unbothered and sleep-loose, so Geralt appears much younger than his true age.

Jaskier touches his cheek. Geralt’s stubble pokes his fingertips, which is as good a sign as any that some time has passed since they started this. Jaskier just doesn’t know how long. It doesn’t feel like a week’s gone by, but he could be wrong.

He hooks his leg over Geralt’s hip and adjusts himself on his side. With the last of the heat go the last of its better properties, and Jaskier feels now, the bruises, the aches in his chest, hips, legs, arms, belly. He feels it all, but it’s a pleasant sort of sex ache that tells him he’s been thuroughly bedded.

Jaskier watches Geralt sleep for a little while, then curls himself under his chin, throwing a hand over him, until they’re so close there’s little air between them. Jaskier will use every lingering bit of his heat to indulge himself--after all he doesn’t know if, or when, he’ll have the chance again.

He smells him, and touches him, hands forming large patterns over his back. He knows, like this, in his sleep, Geralt’s won’t protest when he tells him, “You’re wonderful.”

Pleased with himself, Jaskier lapses into a semblance of sleep, happy to nap. He doesn’t see it but he feels it’s day outside. It seems that his katakan senses allow him to be particularly aware of where the sun is at all times.

Geralt wakes him up by the way he stiffens up, and puts a hand over his back, as if he could bring him any closer if he only put his mind to it. He sniffles over Jaskier’s hair, and his pheromones spike, burning on Jaskier’s tongue. He rumbles out something, which to Jaskier, sounds pretty self-satisfied.

He nuzzles into Geralt’s neck, letting their scents mix, which Geralt himself feels pretty good about it seems, because he shifts so they’re pressing and rubbing their necks together. Finally, Jaskier leans away to look up at him.

“Hey,” he says, unable not to smile, watching the way Geralt eyes him. Jaskier kisses his chin, the corner of his lip, his cheek and cheekbone. “What day is it? My heat broke.”

Jaskier hums, wondering how he can talk Geralt into lingering in bed with him. His presence was a necessity, until now, but Jaskier wants him there all the same. Perhaps he shouldn’t have told him his heat has broken to begin with but he feels like he should inform him of the fact so that, if he truly doesn’t wish to linger, he isn’t obligated to.

“You still smell like it,” Geralt says, through what sounds like a mouthful of glass. Granted, he’s not been using his throat to do much of anything else but growl.

Jaskier feels Geralt’s large hand sliding down his back, lower, until they’re touching his thoroughly used, puffy hole. His fingers push in, hook inside him, and Jaskier shivers.

“See,” he says. “Wet.”

“That’s from you, your come.”

Geralt hums, satisfied, and even has a little smirk on his mouth that makes him infuriatingly attractive. Jaskier feels his body heat up, not from his cycle, but rather as a normal response to having someone as gorgeous as Geralt in his bed, and he decides that if never, he can kiss the bastard now.

Jaskier presses their lips together, licking into Geralt’s open mouth, chasing the taste of himself on his tongue. Geralt hums, pleased. His fingers don’t leave Jaskier’s hole. They shift around, instead as if, Jaskier thinks, to quark him up. He’s still relaxed from the heat, loose from days of fucking and being knotted, and it’s really rather pleasant to have fingers inside of him.

Jaskier doesn’t feel the purr building in his chest but it slips out of him anyway, and he’s as surprised as he’s pleased about it.

Geralt kisses him a little harder at the sound, other hand coming to rub at the back of his neck. Pleasure curls in his belly just at that touch like never before. It’s intoxicating--the way Geralt’s hand traces down his back to arrive at his hip, before Geralt splays his hand over his ass just to grab. Geralt shifts his hips, and Jaskier can feel the head of his cock right there.

“Oh,” Jaskier gasps, feeling the fingers right there where they’re connected, guiding Geralt’s cock until even his half-knot is inside him. His hand proceeds to wrap around his hip again to hold him when Geralt shifts a little and grinds into him.

Another little _‘oh’_ escapes Jaskier’s mouth, and Geralt kisses him. He says, in a little sigh, “You smell so good.”

Jaskier just then remembers that Geralt started rutting in the middle of Jaskier’s heat and that it probably hasn’t broken yet. Ruts last shorter than heats, in most cases, except in mated and bonded pairs, but everything else so far hasn’t been in the books, so he can’t rely on general knowledge.

Jaskier remembers some wild thrusting, remembers being nailed on Geralt’s cock until he was sobbing, but there’s none of that now. No, Geralt’s just grinding inside him, pulling out only a little, as if he just wants to tease Jaskier, to feel him.

Geralt kisses Jaskier’s temple even as he says, “You’re so full of me. You won’t be able to wash me out ever. You’ll be smelling of me for weeks. And when you do, I’ll fill you up all over again.”

Jaskier feels himself shivering. He’s not in heat, he isn’t, and yet he feels susceptible to Geralt’s words, feels himself growing hotter, he can smell his own pheromones, and he knows what they’re suggesting. They’re telling Geralt, right about now, that he likes this very, very much.

Geralt kisses him and Jaskier sighs into it, letting Geralt do as he pleases. Having him inside feels good, even though Jaskier’s own cock has decided to take a day off. It’s not like Geralt’s being wild. In fact, he’s being downright sweet about it all, which Jaskier never thought an alpha in a rut could be.

Jaskier feels full of him, true, and Geralt shifts and finds an angle so deep Jaskier thinks he can feel him in his throat. He whimpers and Geralt shifts, pulling Jaskier with him until he’s lying on top of Geralt. Geralt gets his legs under him, and holds him like that, kissing him as he thrusts slowly, carefully, before pressing his knot inside. Jaskier isn’t sure if he can even lock around him anymore. He’s loose, sloppy, and probably gaping.

Something he’s forgotten, Jaskier is reminded now, is that when an alpha’s in a rut there’s no stopping. No breaks. Geralt is soft, sweet, and not careful as much as he’s sleepy so he fucks Jaskier like that for what feels like an hour. Long enough, at the very least, for Jaskier to start feeling overwhelmed.

“Ah, fuck, I can feel you so deep,” Jaskier whimpers.

By the time Geralt groans, knots him again, and spills inside him, Jaskier is winded, overwhelmed, and--despite himself--horny. Geralt pets him, touching him as much to calm him as it is to scent him.

It doesn’t feel too long until his knot is slipping out, having gone down enough to break the hold because, turns out, Jaskier’s body even out of heat locks on his knot, which really is saying something about how much he wants the man.

Geralt doesn’t pull out. No, he’s still hard inside him, only now Jaskier’s full of his come again. Geralt fucks him like that, and keeps doing it--knotting him, spilling inside of him, pulling out to fuck him all over again, all soft and sweet, and Jaskier can’t catch a fucking breath.

It’s too much, Jaskier thinks. It’s too fucking much, and yet, even though he’s not even hard he feels pleasure swelling inside him, and it hurts, it hurts when he shakes apart again, another dry orgasm taking him.

“See?” Geralt says against his mouth. “You’re still locking on me. Still coming. Still in heat.”

And Jaskier thinks that, perhaps, he might as well be considering how fucking hot he is for Geralt.

#### -

There certainly is something about letting your body be turned, angled, and manipulated. There’s no need driving Jaskier, he feels sated, but Geralt seems to want to feed the already full cup, and Jaskier lets him. It’s kindness as much as it’s self-serving. Geralt seems satisfied to satisfy him, eager to drive out any noise Jaskier can give him. He likes this, taking care of Jaskier in this way. It’s a revelation, like all the rest during his heat.

Eventually, Jaskier gets hard again while he’s on his side. He really wants to sleep but Geralt’s rocking his hips behind him. Come is all over his thighs, having leaked out, so much of it that Jaskier doesn’t want to think how Geralt can even make anymore. Jaskier’s overheated, he’s overstimulated. Everything hurts. Yet, in that pain he finds sweetness as he teases himself, touching his nipples that Geralt was biting just hours earlier.

Geralt moves his leg up, hooks an arm around it to hold it up, to go in deeper, and he wraps it around Jaskier’s cock.

Jaskier shouts. He can’t, he’s hard but he knows he can’t come, he can’t. Geralt’s hand is rough, and slick with their come, and his spit, and he’s mouthing at Jaskier’s neck, making Jaskier all wet.

Geralt’s words are slow, heavy, and blissed out when he speaks. “You’re finally smelling of me. Stay with me. I will do anything, everything, whatever pleases you.”

“Geralt,” Jaskier croaks, his whole body twitching. He wants to run from his touch as much as he wants to sink into his voice. Geralt, like this, rutting, has no control over his alpha voice and each time he speaks, he speaks in it, making Jaskier wet.

He must smell Jaskier and his slick, because he hisses, and says, “You’re beautiful like this. Come with me.”

“I can’t,” Jaskier says.

“You want to,” he says, “You smell like it. You smell like want, still.”

Geralt snaps his hips, suddenly, unexpectedly, and Jaskier feels a sob climbing up his throat. It’s too much. It’s too fucking much.

“My heat broke early. You think you filled me enough. You think you put a pup in me?”

He feels Geralt stiffening behind him, thrusts halting, which is a sweet relief as much as it’s frustration.

Then Jaskier’s unceremoniously flipped onto his belly, his hips are dragged up, and Geralt mounts him like that, pushing him into the blankets of the nest until it’s difficult to breath, his teeth clamping on the back of his neck all over again. It’s then that Jaskier remembers Geralt bit him in the first place. But as sudden as the realization is, it withers on the spot. Geralt fucking him in that harsh, alpha way Jaskier thought it was always like, and Jaskier sobs as he comes, riding out the pleasure and pain until Geralt’s knotting him again.

#### -

Jaskier passes out. His mind seems to know when he’s had too much pleasure and shuts down quicker every time. He wakes up still like that, mouth full of blankets. Jaskier startles, tries spitting them out, and finds his teeth tangled in them. He unhooks them, which is definitely the first time he’s done that, and finds he’s partially shifted. Geralt, breathing hard behind him, doesn’t seem to have noticed anything.

“My teeth dropped.”

Geralt pushes his head between his shoulder blades, and huffs out, “I can’t fucking think.”

It’s the closest thing to old Geralt he’s said as of yet. Jaskier laughs. He understands. The heat and the rut take something from you.

“Can you at least think about how long it’ll be until the rut’s over?”

Geralt rumbles.

“You were in heat for about three days,” he says, and presses kisses all over his back. It seems that he can’t control his impulses when he’s controlling his mind, because Jaskier is certain Geralt would never be that affectionate otherwise.

“Today is fourth,” he mumbles. “So another day I’d say.”

“Your rut’s three days long?”

“Not usually but it’s dissipating,” he says. “It was triggered by your heat anyway. Shouldn’t have been here for another half-year.”  
  


Jaskier hums. Geralt holds his hips tighter and eventually says, “You know witchers are sterile right?”

“Yep,” Jaskier replies.

“I can’t actually give you a pup, even if that was just the heat talking.”

“Yep.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt growls.

“That’s the appeal, big guy. I get all the dirty talk, all the heat and rut talk, all that come inside me, and there’s zero repercussions.”

Geralt makes a sound behind him, and Jaskier turns his head to the side to look at him. He looks baffled. He says, “I thought you’d be disappointed.”

Jaskier actually cackles.

“Geralt,” he says, “if we excuse the current situation of me being cursed and a katakan, between travelling, camping, inns and villages, killing creatures and bandits, pissing off the local lords, my habit of getting piss drunk, being a bard and about, oh say, twenty-eight, where do you exactly see an opening for a pup?”

Geralt goes very still. He says, “You seemed pretty happy about it when your belly was all swollen up.”

“Oh I like the _idea_ of it, sure, especially in heat. But eh.” Jaskier shrugs. “Let’s say I’ve heard my parents arguing over childbirth enough times to be very much not into it.”

“Mother was a beta?” Geralt asks, even as he shifts his hips to slide out of him. Jaskier shivers, and Geralt smooths a hand down his spine as he lays down next to him.

“Yeah,” Jaskier says. “Complications at birth. Doctors had to cut me open. She wasn’t in for a repetition.”

Jaskier’s heard her shrieking, _‘I almost died giving birth to your son, I’m not about to do it again!’_ enough times over the years to be perfectly terrified of having anyone popping out of him, thank you very much.

“Smart woman,” Geralt hums, and Jaskier chuckles.

Like this, Geralt seems to have all of his faculties. The only give away that he’s in rut is the hand on Jaskier’s back, and the fact that, when Jaskier leans over, he lets him kiss him. It’s short, a peck really, but Jaskier has plenty of affections for the man.

“I myself would call her shrewd,” Jaskier replies.

Geralt lifts an eyebrow.

“She technically did her duty, and after birthing me was perfectly free to do what she actually married my father for--money.”

Jaskier doesn’t say that she spent the money to garner favors and make herself indispensable in Redanian court, but it isn’t pertinent for the point he’s trying to prove. She came from a wealthy enough family, but she always knew how to double, even triple their funds. In Jaskier’s lifetime, though the Pankratz last name always had clout, they’ve become rich enough to be ignored. Nouveau rich merchants are socially always a step lower than the poorest of nobility, and they always like to marry into their ranks and get themselves a nice patina. On the other hand, when orders come from the top, they’re meant for their contemporaries. When aiming, nobody hits in the middle. They are perfectly, wonderfully, irrelevant.

“This why you’re a travelling bard?”

“Something like that.” Jaskier smiles. “I was bored, just finished Oxenfurt, and not about to go home.”

“At eighteen?”

Jaskier smirks. “I’m a smart cookie.”

Geralt huffs out a laugh. Jaskeir shifts closer to him so he can kiss his chest, tasting himself and sweat on his skin. It’s a good look on him, this carefree leisure. Jaskier feels his heart squeezing at the sight of him so soft, smiling, and spent.

Jaskier leans in to kiss him, and this time, unlike all the other times, it is exactly like he thought it would be--gently subtle, tentative, and filled with all of Jaskier’s affections that he can’t hold back anymore. Geralt’s lips are supple, chapped, and far too inviting.

Geralt touches his cheek even after Jaskier pulls away, eyebrows drawn together. He looks helpless and tranquil at once. He looks like defeat, if it were sweet as cherry wine spilled in libation to serenity.

Jaskier feels the lump in his throat blossoming into words, words he wants to let loose here and now, and yet fears that he does not know which shape they’ll take when they arrive at Geralt’s feet.

In the end he settles over Geralt’s chest and says, “Dare I ask how one turns into a witcher?”

He sees Geralt’s expression shutter. Jaskier feels the hand on his back stop, and he thinks he’s going to be released, denied, pushed away. Instead, Geralt holds him there as if he might run.

“You take a woman who doesn’t want a child, and leave her without a husband,” Geralt says. “And then just as she was left without a husband, she makes herself without a son too.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says, realising.

“I found my way to Kaer Morhen. Vesemir took me in. There were a few of us.” He sighs. “Fewer remained, after the trials. Potions and magic mutated us, some more than others. And provided we survived, then the training began.”

“How old were you, when you did the trials?”

“Thirteen,” Geralt says. He adds, “It was a long time ago.”

Jaskier hums, and it devolves into a purr--one not of satisfaction but of comfort. He shifts so he’s pressing their faces together, body covering Geralt’s. He feels a moment of hesitation before Geralt’s hands, tentative, circle his hips.

“It was a long time ago,” he repeats, and his voice is carefully neutral. It’s what betrays him. He never sounds neutral unless he’s trying to hide something.

Jaskier can tell that it still hurts him. Long ago or not, some things never leave you. He has no words to make it better. In face of such grief, what is there to say? He lets Geralt hold him instead, pressing their faces together. Sometimes, Jaskier thinks, you just need to know you’re not alone.


	3. Three

As forecasted, Geralt’s rut breaks the next day. Jaskier can smell it fading despite how much they reek of one another, having given up the thought of leaving the nest for a bath, or anything that isn’t a direct threat. As ungraceful as these things are, Jaskier turns a blind eye in favour of riding Geralt until he’s pretty sure he’s dislocated his hips. Hearing Geralt moaning, grabbing at his thighs, need for control waning, is worth it.

When he comes the knot still swells but it doesn’t linger nearly as long as it has before. Jaskier expects Geralt to jump out of the nest the moment he can. Instead he lingers, catching his breath, and when he’s gotten over the post-orgasm haze, gets to his feet. Rather than towards his clothes, he ambles to the water barrels, and proceeds to do a fine job of attempting to drown himself inside.

Food comes next, and Jaskier watches, amused, as Geralt devours the dried fruit and jerky they had in their packs even as he pours some water into the washbasin. He draws a witcher sign in the air, and the water starts steaming.

He brings the washbasin and a rag back to Jaskier, and stands just at the edge of the nest, looking at him with expectation. Jaskier arches an eyebrow in question, but fondness is gentle on his mind when he realises Geralt’s waiting to be invited back in.

He laughs and says, “I literally had your dick in me ten minutes ago, how in hell do you think you’re not invited back into the nest? Get in here.”

“It’s the way of things,” Geralt mutters, and Jaskier finds it all the more endearing. He forgets, sometimes, this rough brand of Geralt’s politeness that’s ever-present in everything he does. It’s positively charming.

He sets the washbasin down, and dunks the rag inside. Jaskier looks at it, sighs and says, “I wish I could get a bath.”

Geralt acknowledges that with a hum. “When we get back to the inn.”

“I’m pretty sure that they think us dead by now. Probably pawned our stuff.”

Geralt wrings the rag out and lays it down over Jaskier’s belly. Jaskier stills, surprised that Geralt would go as far as cleaning him, then melts under Geralt’s soft touches. It must be the after effects of heat partnering, but whether it’s accident or intention, Jaskier’s exhausted, filthy, and not about to turn away some pampering.

Geralt brushes the rag over his chest, teeth marks evident over his nipples, clavicles, ribs. He’s bitten him everywhere it counts. Jaskier likes it, perhaps to a concerning degree. He can feel the beard burn on the back of his neck and his shoulders, he can feel the sting of bruises Geralt’s mouth left, and he’s fairly certain he can feel it between his legs too when Geralt was enthusiastic about licking him clean.

Though he knows Geralt’s just providing a service, like alphas are wont to do, there’s something inherently erotic about Geralt kneeling next to him while Jaskier’s covered in his come, and more leaking out of him.

Geralt seems to remember himself because he stiffens, and pulls his hand away. “Come on, the faster we clean up the faster we can get to that bath.”

He exits the nest again, and Jaskier can’t keep himself from watching him. Geralt in the nude is a gift his eyes rarely receive. Furthermore, when he pays attention, he can see Geralt himself didn’t go unharmed. Jaskier may have beard burn from his neck down to his ass, but Geralt has claw marks all over his back which are partially healing and thus look worse for it. The bruises don’t help the matter, in the shape of Jaskier’s hands on his thighs, hips, and shoulders. Jaskier never really left marks before--it’s impolite--and he never thought this particular side of sex appealing. But, as everything else with Geralt, this primal satisfaction in his belly echoes the appeal at the sight of the marks, the evidence of what they did, and the possessiveness however short lived.

Then, Jaskier remembers witchers heal quickly, and wonders just what strength he now possessed to be able to mark Geralt in such a way.

“Did I shift?” Jaskier asks, trying to clean himself up with quick, broad swipes of the rag.

“Partially,” Geralt replies, confirming his suspicions. Jaskier was right--having Geralt spend the heat with him was the correct decision. He half-shifted, and held Geralt strong enough to leave bruises on him--he doesn’t want to think what the consequences of that would have looked like with a regular man.

When he’s cleaned himself up as much as he could, Jaskier attempts the chore of standing, and when he’s vertical, he attempts walking--both things which he finds surprisingly easy to do. He’s sore, true, but in no way incapacitated, and he’s sure it has something to do with being a katakan. After five days on a knot, he shouldn’t be _spry_.

Dressing, as it turns out, is the issue. The back of his neck where Geralt bit him is so sensitive, he thinks he might just as well go shirtless. It wouldn’t be unlike his cock chafing every time he took a step, and he’s not sure he can live through that discomfort.

Geralt doesn’t seem to share the same pains. Now that Jaskier thinks on it, he can’t remember stripping Geralt out of his armor, but there it is, fitted over his shoulders again, as if nothing happened.

“What do you want to do with the nest?” Geralt asks, apparently in a hurry to leave.

Jaskier considers the dilapidated mess of it. He supposes he should be a little attached, but with the heat gone, he just finds it embarrassingly messy. And, what with the fact it’s in a monster’s den, and someone actually coming across it would be mortifying, in the end Jaskier says, “Deconstruct and burn.”

Geralt grows still but his face reveals nothing. It bothers Jaskier, because in that indifference he sees a mask, and he wonders if Geralt’s judging him or if he’s pleased. In the end, the man says, “Alright.”

He walks past him, but halts and rushes back, pushing his head down, exposing his neck. His glove is cold on Jaskier’s shoulder.

“I bit you.” It rips itself out of him like a curse, deceptively quiet for just how unnerving it is.

Jaskier feels his own heart tripping up, as if he can sense Geralt’s agitation and is responding to it.

“Uh, yeah. Twice,” he says, tries to lift his head up, only to fail. Geralt holds him like that, looking at the evidence of his deed like it’s a murder weapon.

He says nothing, but Jaskier can feel a chill going down his spine, feeling unnerved with just how disturbed Geralt is. “Look--” he starts but Geralt interrupts him.

“I _bit_ you,” he repeats, loud and distressed.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Jaskier wiggles out of Geralt’s hold and spins around just to say, “You were in _rut_ Geralt. And _maybe_ you could’ve controlled yourself if it was just you, but I was in heat, and not even a _witcher_ alpha can resist something like that. It’s fine.”

Geralt doesn’t look like he believes him, so he continues, saying, “If I don’t consider it a big deal, you shouldn’t either. It’s rut, shit happens. What we _should_ be focusing on is getting back to the village.”

At least Geralt agrees on that front, though his stormy eyebrows never lift up. He looks equal parts angry with himself and with the situation. It’s something Jaskier understands, but being angry with something he can’t change is about as smart as putting your own face through the wall.

In about an hour, when the nest has burned down and Jaskier’s talked himself into wearing his undershirt, they’re back on the road. Good thing they waited too, because dusk gives way to night quickly, and Jaskier feels energetic enough to reach the village at record speed.

He busts through the doors of the inn, goes straight for the innkeeper and says, “Please tell me you’ve not sold our stuff.”

The woman looks at him for a long moment, then bursts out laughing.

“We thought yer dead,” the woman says. From behind the bar she picks up Geralt’s rucksack, which he couldn’t have very well brought to a fight, and Jaskier’s lute, which he definitely didn’t want to bring with him. “Decided to keep it behind the bar for ya since we needed a free room for Velen.”

“Oh blessed Melitele, thank you,” Jaskier sighs, not even bothered that he missed the holiday. It would’ve been good coin, but considering the turn of events, he can only be grateful he stayed away. “Now please tell me you have a free room? With a bath perhaps?”

The woman remains amused. “Happens that I do have a free room right now. A bath won’t be ready for half-hour though, unless you want to warm yer water in your own room.”

“We can do that,” Geralt says before Jaskier can reply. Jaskier can feel him at his back, intimately.

The woman gives them a key and directions, while Geralt proceeds to take his pack, pay the woman, and shove Jaskier upstairs.

Despite the creaking of the stairs, Jaskier can still hear the innkeeper mutter, “Well that’s a first.”

Jaskier lets himself be crowded up the stairs into the room, because then he has the dibs on the bath. Whore’s baths are all well and good considering you can do little else on the road, but Jaskier knows he stinks of come, heat, rut, and Geralt, and that’s just a bad idea for travelling no matter how much he enjoys how their scents overlay.

At least, Jaskier thinks as he lays the large wooden bath down, he let all that come drain out of him in that cave. Geralt lifts the barrel of water, the barrell that easily has a hundred pounds in it, and pours the room-temperature water inside, sticks a hand in it, and swirls it around until it’s warm. Jaskier goes to his pack and throws in the salts, the herbs, the oils he has for these situations, and proceeds to remove his hastily put together clothes.

Ten years of friendship, and five days of mind-blowing sex later, Jaskier thinks nothing of stripping naked and sitting on a stool to washes his hair first, taking a rag to clean himself up once again next, before he finally descends into the bath. The groan leaves his mouth unbidden and appreciative. The temperature is divine.

Jaskier feels himself unwinding. The heat’s passed but he feels soft and affectionate, and a bit put off that Geralt’s not anywhere near him. He’s going through his pack instead, not even half-way out of his armour. Jaskier’s gaze must be obvious because Geralt lifts his head to look at him, and an eyebrow follows, rising in question.

“The water’s perfect,” Jaskier says. “Why don’t you get in on this?”

Geralt’s eyebrows lower in refusal.

“Come on, you can wash your hair after you warm some more water and I can shave you.”

Geralt’s gaze lingers, and this time Jaskier doesn’t know what it means.

“What, I’m not trying to get into your pants alright? My dick isn’t working for at least another week.”

Geralt huffs a borderline amused sound, and that’s how Jaskier knows he’s won. Geralt strips down and comes closer, and ends up washing his hair just like Jaskier proposed.

“Ridiculous man,” Jaskier hums, sitting up and moving his legs so Geralt can get inside the bath. “Is that what you were really worried about?”

Geralt steps inside the bath and sits on the opposite side.

“You _got_ inside my pants, pretty thoroughly, just now.”

“Right?” Jaskier shrugs, chuckling.

The bath is big enough for the two of them to be cozy, and Geralt plays along, tolerating Jaskier’s legs at his sides. Jaskier leans back and sighs. He supposes that sharing a bath with someone isn’t a standard thing, but then again, he’d literally had almost every body liquid of Geralt’s on him or inside him, so he’s not particularly prudish. He prefers having him close like this. Since Geralt is soaking with him, he assumes the feeling is mutual--be it the effects of rutting or whatever instincts alphas have when it comes to aftercare.

The hour long trek did Geralt good. He looks less like he wants to kill something and more like he’d rather just gently throttle.

“You can’t be angry with yourself over this,” Jaskier says, motioning towards his neck.

“I lost control.”

“Yes, you did. Like every other alpha rutting does. You can’t go against your nature. Tell me, how long has it been since you’ve spent a rut with anyone?”

Geralt huffs like an annoyed bear, but remains silent, which is telling enough.

“There you go,” Jaskier concludes. “You know the contemporary values I hold. Truly, it’s quite alright. Rather than making you forgive yourself, I should be thanking you for helping me.”

Geralt watches him for a long moment. Then his shoulders unwind, and he shakes his head ruefully. He doesn’t sound testy as much as he sounds resigned when he says, “I should’ve known this wouldn’t be an issue for you.”

“I’d much rather worry about the curse, than the bite. It’ll heal in a couple of years anyway. Or are you looking for a repeat performance?” Jaskier teases, angling his head so he can look at him.

Geralt’s fists clench and unclench, and he looks more than annoyed. “There won’t be a need for one, if we’re quick enough. The sooner the curse is lifted, the sooner you can go back on the suppressants.”

Geralt it seems, as per usual, has taken this far too seriously. Jaskier feels his jovial mood cooling, in the face of Geralt’s reality. He doesn’t know how to contend with the fact that, while pleasurable, and while it was a long time coming, Geralt doesn’t seem in any mood to be spending any more heats with him. It’s a rejection but it’s not the first Jaskier’s ever experienced. He’s been skirt-chasing and sweet-talking enough to let the blow roll off of him.

He shifts in the bath and says, “Alright then. Now that we’ve solved that--”

He gets on his knees and shuffles closer, using Geralt’s shoulders as purchase as he settles on his lap. He can feel Geralt’s easy breath against his wet skin. Even like this, Jaskier feels a certain hunger for Geralt, his kisses, words, and touch, that are now all withheld. He reaches down for the shaving oil and rubs it into Geralt’s cheeks. Usually, Geralt is far more relaxed than now, but Jaskier pays him no mind. He’s just got a stubble really, and Jaskier rarely gets a chance to shave him unless it’s really grown out. Strange that Geralt’s letting him at all, considering how tense he is. Jaskier likes stealing these moments though, so he doesn’t question it.

He has the sneaking suspicion that Geralt’s not going to let him touch him soon enough, and he’s going to milk this for all it’s worth. He has no other excuse to touch his cheeks, even though half of his focus is on the actual shaving which, Jaskier thinks, is over too quickly.

Jaskier touches his own chin and says, “Huh, thought I’d be as stubbly as you by this point.”

“Katakans don’t really change,” Geralt says. “They can mimic the appearance of humans, which means they can _make_ their appearance change, but they themselves remain relatively the same.”

“That sounds like a passage from a book.”

“It is,” Geralt hums, almost amused.

“That’s convenient,” Jaskier says. “We can save up more coin now.”

Geralt uses the towel to clean up his face, and Jaskier rubs the rest of the oil into his cheeks.

“Until we get to Ard Carraigh at least,” Geralt allows.

Jaskier forgets himself and lets his hands linger, cupping Geralt’s face for far too long, and Geralt’s hands, which have been prone on the sides of the bath, move to his wrists. Yet, instead of leaving Geralt alone, Jaskier just slides his hands lower, to rest on his chest.

“Jaskier--” he starts but he doesn’t want to hear it.

“How’s your back?” he asks instead. “I know you said I’ve grown stronger but...I didn’t think I’d be leaving bruises on you.”

“It’s fine.” After a moment, Geralt says, “Katakans don’t really lose it. Still, it was a good choice, having me there.”

Jaskier nods. It’s not often that Geralt appreciates his ideas.

“Having someone who knows what to do with all this is reassuring. Thank you.”

Geralt hums. His hands remain curled around his wrists, unmoving. For someone who has touched him so liberally just hours before, it speaks quite a tale. Jaskier just isn’t sure which.

“Have you been hungry?”

Jaskier shrugs. “Not really. But I don’t know if it’s the heat thing or just the katakan thing.”

“Then you should feed all the same.” Geralt takes the cleaned straight razor and cuts himself on his shoulder. “Go ahead.”

Refusing, he supposes, would be rude. He presses his mouth over the wound, and is surprised to find Geralt’s blood tastes the same as before. He assumed, somehow, that it’d be sweetened by his instincts, his need, his starvation. This time he can control himself, and isn’t messy about it. When Geralt’s wound inevitably heals, he licks his tongue over it, and pulls away. Only then does he realise he’s been leaning onto Geralt the whole time, pressing against his neck. He doesn’t think when he touches their cheeks together in a quick nuzzle.

Geralt stiffens at that, and doesn’t do anything: doesn’t pull away, nor does he nuzzle back. A non-answer is just like Geralt though.

Jaskier sighs and moves away so he can stand up. His fingers have pruned. After he pats himself dry, he digs some clean clothes from his pack, by which he means he finds a clean undershirt and underpants, because he’s in a room with a hearth, and it’s warm as it is, and he isn’t about to dress in pants until they’re ready to leave.

Geralt lingers in the bath even when Jaskier plops down on the bed. He remembers then the burn on his skin, and tries and fails to rub some soothing oil over the beard-burn. He complains loudly enough that Geralt, eventually, takes mercy and rubs it in for him when he’s dried off.

“So,” Jaskier says, “We’ll go to that lordling to get paid, and then, we’ll be going north?”

Geralt grunts. “There aren’t many villages between here and Ard Carraigh. We’ll have to camp most of the way.”

Jaskier shrugs. “Projected arrival time?”

“About three months,” Geralt says. “If we really push it.”

“So four.”

Geralt’s fingers are quick over his back, but gentle over the nape of his neck. The touch, suddenly, seems far too intimate. Jaskier can feel the raised skin, marks of Geralt’s teeth, and even Geralt seems to be somehow taken with it, if his distracted grunt of agreement is anything to go by.

Four months, Jaskier thinks. That doesn’t sound too bad.

“So you’re telling me we should definitely get our clothes laundered here, while we still have the chance?” Geralt gives him a look. Jaskier smiles. “So that’s a yes?”

#### -

Kaedwin isn’t a particularly good vacation destination for Redanians, and Jaskier never had the chance to visit while he was in the unfortunate company of his parents. He strayed over reluctantly, chasing a story of Dol Blathanna, and instead came upon Geralt at the edge of the world. But Posada is miles and months away from the north of Hagge. Between the mountain range holding back Redanian unpleasantry on their left, and the river Buina on their right, they remain on a certain path towards Ard Carraigh. Kaedwen isn’t a country, it’s a forest in which villages aren’t planted as accidentally sprouted, dandelions in Oxenfurt’s paved streets. It’s a wild country with even wilder people. There’s more forest than there is anything else which, Jaskier supposes, works for their purposes right now, but would otherwise be unbearable for Jaskier. He needs towns, attention, people, fellow colleagues, bards and courts.

Then again, he’s grateful that nobody gets to see him give chase to a doe, because it tickles some katakan sense he wasn’t aware of, or the fact that he trips over his own feet because he’s suddenly running far too fast. Geralt looks at him, amused, and helps him up to his feet. It’s wonderful to see him in better spirits than that thunderous cloud he’s been carrying since the heat, true, but he’s also dirty, confused, and the joke’s at his expense.

“Yes, very funny,” Jaskier says, a little prickly, which seems to amuse Geralt even more. Unfortunately, the urge to kiss him when he’s like this remains.

It’s a good thing, Jaskier thinks again, that nobody sees the way his fingers cut into Geralt’s palm like they’re straight razors. Jaskier tugs his hand away but the damage is done. His hands have changed color to brown appendages from which five large daggers hang, awkward and disused. It’s not the first time it’s happened, but it takes Jaskier by surprise each time. He can’t sense it and thus can’t control it.

Geralt only hums and offers his hand anyway. Jaskier is weak, weak for him and his scent, and so he laps up the blood from his cut hand. He can’t very well touch Geralt, so it’s him who shifts his hand, and ends up brushing his thumb over Jaskier’s lips. It reminds Jaskier of when he did that during the heat, right after licking his come into Jaskier’s mouth.

Jaskier’s cock twitches, but that’s pretty much all it does. As much as he remains, and perhaps is even more, attracted to the man, his body’s still in the phase of recovery.

“To be quite honest, if this is katakan puberty, they have it way better than humans.”

Geralt snorts and pulls his hand away. “Not puberty. Katakan children usually remain in their original forms until maturation, at which point they shift to look like humans, to feed easier. The curse should do something about the same for you, except in reverse.”

The thought of turning into a katakan isn’t a comfortable one. He’s afraid that it’s going to hurt, that he’s going to hurt someone, namely Geralt, and that he won’t be able to control himself at all. Otherwise, he supposes, it’d be quite interesting, turning into a vampire. He’s written songs about monsters and monster slaying, but he never thought he’d be in their shoes.

Jaskier brings it up one insufferable noon, and Geralt, with his eyes closed in an attempt to meditate, says, “It’s magic--it will hurt only if you think it will.”

“I’m--are you sure magic works like that?”

Geralt opens his eyes to look at him, as if asking, ‘Are you seriously questioning _me_ of all people?’ Jaskier can pretty much read it off of his eyebrows. At least he’s fluent when it comes to the matter of annoyances.

“Magic doesn’t come from humans, or elves, or the conjunction. Magic comes from a dream that turned into an idea, an idea that became a belief, and that belief turned it into truth. Magic exists because all of us, on the Continent, don’t even contest the idea of its existence. That is all.”

Jaskier wishes, somehow, he could’ve written all of that. “Elegantly put.”

“Not my words,” Geralt replies.

“Another book?”

“We’re actually _taught_ things before setting out on the Path,” Geralt replies.

Jaskier really wishes he were writing this down. But, whenever Geralt lapses into rare moments of talkativeness, he can’t help but pay full attention to him.

“So it won’t hurt if I believe it won’t hurt,” Jaskier repeats.

Geralt hums.

Then, Jaskier thinks, he won’t lose control if he doesn’t think he will, and he definitely won’t hurt anyone. He sighs. It's a bigger relief than Geralt can even assume. “Good to know.”

They come across a lake two days after that. Like all mountainous lakes, it’s deceptively large though there’s no fog to conceal the other side, and the pines looming over it stand guardians, unchanging in face of the shifting season. They tie Roach under one of them, near the bank, so she can drink whenever she wants, and set up camp.

Jaskier has seen many dusks, but dawns somehow escaped him, whether it’s because he was drunk and getting home, or he was running away from scorned partners and family. As he sits on the pier where two old rotten and sunk fishing boats lay forgotten, his feet soaking in the luke-warm water, he can’t help but think there’s something about the way the faint yellow rays, almost tentatively poke their heads between the tall, stern pines, whose green color only grows darker from their presence. Between the trees, the inhabitants seem to protest the light, growing louder until the forest, around them, is alive.

The tentativeness is only temporary. The shine grows brighter, until the sun is high in the east, warming over the lake, the forest, and Jaskier. In these moments when the sun’s still young, Jaskier can still feel the pleasure of his skin warming up. The migraine will come only later.

Jaskier stands up and disrobes. The lake is deep enough for him to dive in, but not so deep that Jaskier can’t see the bottom, the grass, and the fish. He swims underwater until he needs air, and surfaces. Swimming, he thinks, one of the luxuries of life. The luxuries of travelling with Geralt too. They inevitably come to a river, a lake, or the sea, and Jaskier can swim and soak however much he likes. It’s quiet, underwater. For some reason, it makes Jaskier feel as if he’s being held. His ears are filled only with echoes and with his evolving senses, it’s a mitigating gift.

He luxuriates until he feels the heat growing, and knows that his time is nearly up. He surfaces somewhere near the camp where Geralt has been tending to Roach. He turns to look at him and Jaskier grins.

“You should join me.”

“You should be getting out of the sun,” Geralt replies.

Jaskier blows him a raspberry. Childishness is only fitting when contended with dourness of age. He’s in a good mood and not even Geralt’s grouchiness can change that.

“And you could use this to get the scent of horse off of you. It’s been, what, two weeks? Come on, Geralt. We can race to the other side.”

Geralt’s eyebrows shift at the challenge. Jaskier knows him, alright.

Sun pours over Jaskier’s back but its heat only rivals pleasant kisses. It encourages him to lift a challenging eyebrow in Geralt’s direction, and put his hands to his hips.

“You’re going to complain it’s not a fair competition when you lose.” Geralt sighs, but it sounds like he’s giving in, and Jaskier can hear him fumbling with buttons already.

Pleased, Jaskier says, “ _If_ I lose, you mean.”

Geralt doesn’t look convinced, which that’s just as well. He takes off his shirt, undershirt, and kicks off his boots, before he shucks off his pants.

Jaskier gets a very, _very_ , nice eyeful, and can’t help but smile and shrug when he’s caught. He’s been standing in waist-deep water and now he steps back, turning when Geralt joins him.

“It’s a sprint to the pier,” Jaskier says. Geralt grunts in agreement.

Jaskier counts to two, and on three he dives down, like he’s been taught, swimming long underwater before surfacing. He doesn’t really expect to win, he just wanted to get Geralt to loosen up, have some fun, and annoy him a little since he’s been keeping his hands, looks, and mouth to himself with no particular reason other than to be contrary. He definitely doesn’t expect Geralt to wrap his hand around his ankle and drag him down just as he’s about to reach the pier.

Jaskier yelps, but the sound is drowned in the water that he accidentally inhales, and when he surfaces Geralt’s sitting at the ledge of the pier, like Jaskier was doing just hours before, probably soaking his clothes, and looking smug.

“That’s cheating,” Jaskier croaks once he’s coughed out the water.

“Uh-huh,” Geralt says, mouth curling up into a smile.

Jaskier still wants to kiss him when he gets like this. It’s fortunate that he knows how to get back at him, otherwise he’d be rendered a poor pathetic sap. As it is, Jaskier swims closer until he has his own hand around Geralt’s ankle.

“If you’re trying to pull me down, don’t,” Geralt says.

Jaskier’s grip isn’t tight. He moves it up, massaging Geralt’s calf. He sees when Geralt realises the true intent behind that touch, which is about the same time Jaskier leans forward, to rest his cheek, briefly, on his knee, before kissing the skin there, on the inseam.

“Jaskier,” he says, a warning in his voice.

“Not into it?” Jaskier asks, raising his other hand to rest on Geralt’s opposite knee. He situates himself between Geralt’s thighs nicely, so he can kiss more skin, and drag his mouth over the twitching muscle.

He looks up at Geralt. Their scents are fresh from water, but Jaskier can still smell his want. It’s a familiar scent by now, warm and maddening.

“It’s not that.”

“Then what’s the issue? To be quite honest, I really, _really_ , want to blow you.”

Geralt’s hands twitch where he’s got them fisted over his thighs.

“I mean,” Jaskier continues, because he knows Geralt needs a few minutes to gather his words anyway, “I sort of wanted to do something the moment we were in that bath, but I’m pretty sure neither mine nor your dick were in functional order. The heat really takes something from you doesn’t it? Anyway. Two weeks, sort of assumed the system’s back in order.”

“So,” Jaskier says looking up at Geralt. “Can I?”

A gruff, “Yeah,” liberates itself from Geralt’s chest and Jaskier grins. Good then. Geralt has a pretty dick. Jaskier never thought he would call a pretty dick ever, but here he is, enthusiastically offering to suck him.

Mouthing at Geralt’s thick thighs, Jaskier indulges in what he could not do before--pay them the proper attention they deserve. Jaskier can feel muscle jumping under his hand when he drags his nails gently down the skin, ignoring the difference in texture when he comes upon a scar. Even there, on the inseam, where Jaskier presses his mouth in heavy kisses, Geralt isn’t without injury. However, his curiosity is abated by his lust and the scent of Geralt’s need.

“How do you like it?” he asks Geralt. He’s found that asking is easier than fumbling around until he gets it right.

He wraps his hand around Geralt’s cock, shivering a little even though the sun’s beating at his back, the water’s warm, and the body he’s touching is warmer still. Geralt’s half-hard already. He rubs his thumb over the tip, and feels Geralt twitch in his hand.

“Your crown is sensitive,” he mutters, wrapping his lips around it just to suck.

Geralt really is big. He isn’t sure if he can quite fit it all in his mouth. Well, Jaskier thinks, he’s certainly going to try.

“It’s a blowjob Jaskier,” Geralt huffs, and pushes the hair from Jaskier’s forehead with his fingers, before laying his hand on his head. “I’ve found pretty much every kind good.”

Jaskier pushes his tongue against it, before he licks his way down the length until his nose is brushing against Geralt’s stomach and the coarse hair he has there. Geralt’s scent is thick, concentrated in a way it usually is only after he’s exerted himself. Now that he’s spent a heat and a rut with Geralt, he’s realised just how faint his scent really is--another grace of turning witcher, perhaps, or a natural oddity. Jaskier salivates regardless, knowing surely that if he weren’t still half submerged in water, he’d be dripping wet. Aside from their friendship, it seems their bodies find themselves absurdly compatible.

Jaskier licks Geralt’s cock, halfway chasing the scent and halfway waiting for him to grow to full hardness, while he moves his hand, jerking him off until he can smell the first precome leaking from the tip. He laps it up, and when he tastes it he can’t help rolling his tongue over the tip over and over again, sucking until he feels Geralt’s stomach shuddering with a shaky breath. Geralt is thick and uncut, and about the biggest thing he’s had inside him.

Jaskier groans, pushing away, and finds that Geralt’s hand rests on his head just to touch rather than hold him close. He doesn’t know if to be pleased with Geralt’s tactfulness, or disappointed he’s not being choked on the cock right about now. The former, probably. Fantasies aside, if he wants that, he’s going to have to work up to it.

“Mmm,” Jaskier mumbles, “How the fuck did I take your knot?”

“Enthusiastically,” Geralt replies.

He must think about it because more precome leaks from his cock. Jaskier decides to lick it up, and takes Geralt in his mouth, moving his fist down the more he takes into his mouth, until he feels Geralt hitting his palate. Geralt groans, and Jaskier’s cock twitches in sympathy. Jaskier finds himself a nice, easy pace, and when he sees Geralt won’t be moving his hips or making use of his hand on Jaskier’s head, he starts moving his hand in tandem, stroking the rest of Geralt’s cock that’s not in his mouth.

His other hand grips Geralt thigh. He’s not even subtle about the way he’s touching his wrist to his skin, rubbing his scent in. He shouldn’t, it’s not very considerate, but when he tries to shift his hand Geralt moans, and he forgets all about it in favor of sucking him harder, trying to get more of his cock inside his mouth, and testing his own limits.

Jaskier wishes he could touch himself. He’s hard, and it wouldn’t be such a chore at all just to grip himself. If he were in a bed, he’d be rubbing his cock into the sheets. He likes that little edge of it, the desperation. But now, all he can think is holding onto Geralt, sucking him, bobbing his head, trying to breathe, and swallowing the precome he’s leaking. There’s so much of it, and fuck, Jaskier keeps forgetting Geralt’s an alpha that was in a rut just two weeks ago, of course he’s going to be so wet. He moans around Geralt’s cock, licking him and sucking him until his jaw starts to ache.

Jaskier has to pull off, just for a moment, and his breathing is tight and warm as his hand strokes Geralt quickly, feeling the way he’s twitching, knowing he’s close.

“I wish I could take all of you,” Jaskier says. “I wish you could fuck my throat, so I can feel you there too. I’ll have to practice.”

Jaskier presses his teeth into Geralt’s thigh instead, leaving only shallow purfactory teeth marks. He feels Geralt twitching in his hand. He _likes_ that, Jaskier thinks, and fails at not being smug about the discovery.

He sucks Geralt back into his mouth, and feels Geralt’s hand stiffening on his head. He looks up at Geralts needy, hopeless frown, and feels such a shock of pleasure at the sight of Geralt course down his spine that he almost chokes when Geralt starts coming.

He swallows quickly, immediately, and then can’t help but focus on just stroking his cock and licking and sucking on his tip, lapping up all of his come until Geralt’s twitching in his mouth, growing sensitive.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, voice low, growly, making him shiver.

Jaskier doesn’t pull off Geralt’s cock as much as he simply rests his head on his inner thigh and it slips from his mouth.

“Get up here.” Geralt’s demand is a thinly veiled need.

Jaskier swallows. His voice is a little breathy when he chuckles. He moves away so he can grip the pier wood properly, and he hefts himself up, finding enough place to land his knee between Geralt’s legs. That, Jaskier thinks, went much smoother than he thought. He tips over enough to land a kiss on Geralt’s lips.

He thinks it a peck, but Geralt grabs his face and licks into his mouth, until he must be tasting himself on Jaskier’s tongue. Jaskier groans, releasing the dock to clutch at Geralt’s shoulders, letting himself overbalance because Geralt has him, Geralt’s sturdy, reliable, and unmovable.

Jaskier could kiss him forever, if only Geralt let him. However, Geralt breaks the kiss and seems to want to say something, but pecks Jaskier’s mouth again as if he can’t resist, and keeps doing it until they’re kissing all over again, Geralt’s hands brushing all over his quickly drying skin what with the sun beating down on them. But Jaskier can’t even think about the sun now, no, not when Geralt scoots them back, near Jaskier’s clothes, and then lays down on his back.

Jaskier pulls away just to straddle him properly, and in that space Geralt says, “Come up here.”

Jaskier crooks an inquiring eyebrow and Geralt returns the question with his own eyebrow, as if to say, ‘What the hell do you _think_ I’m asking?’ Jaskier is enamoured with an absolute bastard, and he isn’t sure why he finds that crook of his eyebrow so damn appealing.

Amused by himself, Jaskier grins as he lets Geralt’s hands on his hips guide him up, up, until his hard cock is almost touching Geralt’s lips.

“You can fuck my throat,” Geralt says, gruff and straight to the point as always. Without much preamble, he then wraps a hand around his hip and guides him until Jaskier’s sinking inside his mouth.

The thing is, Jaskier tries desperately to think around a loud groan that settles somewhere in the small of his back, Geralt really does know how to suck cock. Jaskier’s shocked, pleased, and so turned on that he’s pretty sure he’s going to be embarrassing himself in about a minute.

There’s no teasing with Geralt. He takes half of him, and then opens his throat and takes the rest of him until his tongue is pressing on the underside of Jaskier’s balls, and Jaskier can’t do much but let his thighs shake, moan, and grip Geralt’s hair. He feels far too overheated.

Geralt guides Jaskier’s hips once or twice, as if testing himself, before he releases them in favor of gliding his hands down to the underside of Jaskier’s thighs.

And really the sight, the fucking sight of Geralt looking up at him with those greedy determined golden eyes of his, serious even as his mouth is stretched around Jaskier’s cock, is unbearable. Jaskier rolls his hips; Geralt said he could after all. Fuck, he never expected this.

He holds Geralt’s head, rolling his hips over and over again, trying to grasp for some sort of semblance of control, but when he sees Geralt can take it, he shivers all over, hips stuttering and losing rhythm. Geralt’s mouth is perfect, warm, soft, sucking him just right, and he can’t--

Jaskier feels Geralt gripping his ass even as he feels wetness sliding down his thigh, and it isn’t water. He’s wet for Geralt, again, always it seems like, and he whines out a garbled moan when he feels his fingers brushing over his entrance.

“Geralt,” he gasps, and Geralt looked up at him. Whatever he sees in Jaskier’s face makes him move his fingers, breaching him.

Jaskier shakes. He’s going to come. The angle isn’t the best, not for fingers, not like this, but it’s the girth of them and the weight inside that get him off. In the last moment he feels Geralt’s hand on his hip tugging him forward. He leans over Geralt, losing control completely, as he shoots into his mouth, throat working around a loud moan.

He can’t catch his breath because Geralt drinks him down, and his throat keeps constricting around him even when there’s nothing left to drink. Jaskier knows he’s about to choke him, knows that he has to move, and it’s only that thought that has him taking control of his trembling limbs, moving back and letting his cock fall from Geralt’s mouth.

Geralt doesn’t look put out. No, he tugs and arranges him until he can lick up his thighs chasing, Jaskier realises, his slick. Then he’s pulling his hip so Jaskier has to turn around, _presenting_ himself, and tugs him down until Jaskier’s very much sitting on his face, holding himself up with two hands pressed into Geralt’s firm chest. Geralt’s hands spreading his cheeks then, his tongue pressing against his hole.

Jaskier curses with feeling. Geralt’s tongue is insistent, lapping him up even though he only grows more wet from it. Trembling, he’s unsure what to find more arousing: the fact that Geralt finds Jaskier’s attraction to him appealing, the loop from the heat continuing, or the fact that Geralt seems needy for this now, as needy as Jaskier feels.

Jaskier’s just come but that doesn’t mean he isn’t sensitive. In fact it’s the very opposite; he’s too sensitive, and it’s been two weeks of nothing, and now this.Jaskier moans, twitching as he feels Geralt’s tongue pushing inside of him. He gasps, and can’t quite catch his breath after, becuase Geralt’s relentless about fucking him on his tongue until, he’s pretty sure, he’s bullying the slick out of him. It’s covering his face, Jaskier can feel it and can’t help the image which forms in his mind. Suddenly all he wants to do is look at Geralt’s face to determine just how messy he’s let himself get by tongue-fucking him.

Jaskier can smell their scents mingling again in a bastardized version of the heat, and his heartbeat ticks up. His skin is suddenly sticky with phantom-tendrils of that week spent in a nest, body pulsing from the memory of Geralt’s touches, the aches, and the pleasure. Geralt’s hands knead his ass, and when Jaskier is loose, gaping around Geralt’s tongue, he feels a finger pushing, teasing him open, then another. They work inside him with Geralt’s tongue until Jaskier’s hard again and shivering, cock so very near Geralt’s face and yet neglected.

He’s not the only one, at least. He can see how hard Geralt is, curved into his thigh. It’s quite a sight, Geralt naked and under him, thighs parted and begging for Jaskier’s mouth, his cock, the trail of hair to his navel, and the expanse of his chest under Jaskier’s hands. In heat he could think about doing nothing else but getting a knot inside him, and in the rut there were things he simply could not do lest Geralt pin him down and mount him, hard, from the back.

Now though, he kneads his fingers into Geralt’s chest, admiring the cushioning. It’s unfair really. Everything about him gets Jaskier going. He’s wanted to touch his pecks ever since he saw Geralt shirtless, and while he’s stubborn enough to have done it, as a play at accident, it only left Jaskier wanting to dig his fingers in, like he’s doing now. Jaskier pinches his nipples and kneads his pecks, and sees the way Geralt’s cock twitches.

“Your tits are sensitive, huh?” Jaskier asks, just to tease.

Geralt is vindictive though, and removes his mouth from Jaskier’s hole just so he can bite his asscheek. Jaskier startles away from the touch, and finds that his cock rests rather beautifully between Geralt’s pecks.

“Oh, fuck,” Jaskier says, forgetting all and any affronts, just to roll his hips, brushing his cock over Geralt’s sternum.

For a moment he wants to turn around, fuck between Geralt’s tits while looking at him, spend himself all over his face, lick him clean, kiss him filthy afterwards. But then Geralt surges up, mouth back where he wants it. His fingers push in just as Jaskier rolls his hips, striking such a good tempo that Jaskier doesn’t know if he wants to fuck Geralt’s chest as much as he wants to fuck himself back onto his fingers. He’s trapped like that, pinched between two pleasures until he can’t do much else but moan. He’s close, and if Geralt curls his fingers just right one more time Jaskier knows he’s going to lose it.

But, Jaskier always gives as good as he gets. He leans down until he’s lying over Geralt. Thank fuck they’re of a height, becuase he can reach his cock well enough. He licks the precome Geralt’s cock dribbled all over his belly before wrapping his mouth around the tip, sucking him until he feels the cock twitch in his mouth. A shudder runs down Geralt’s thighs; it’s indicative of just how good Geralt’s feeling.

Jaskier doesn’t tease, not this time. He takes Geralt into his mouth as much as he can, limited by position, and jerks him off quickly, wanting to taste him on his tongue again. But more than that, he wants it inside him, suddenly, so overwhelmingly, it alarms him. It’s a wave of need and pleasure that crashes over him, and he’s coming, just like that, rubbing his cock over Geralt’s chest, between his perfect tits, and pinned on Geralt’s fingers. Jaskier’s body convulses, his hips twitching uncontrollably, and he moans around Geralt’s cock until he can feel Geralt following after him, spilling in his mouth.

Jaskier swallows around him, licks him clean, and when he pulls off he slumps, needing to catch his breath. Jaskier can feel Geralt shifting his hips, and when his mind finally connects to reality again he becomes aware of the position they’re still in. He shifts enough to be polite, not laying on top of Geralt as much as laying next to him.

The heat is unbearable, which means it’s well past noon, but Jaskier’s in a mood, and his migraine still isn’t there, so he lets the post-orgasm feeling linger until he becomes aware of how hard the pier is on his bones. He shifts then, because as much as he likes the view of Geralt’s thighs, he needs to see his face which is, when he does, still covered in his slick. Jaskier, unable to stop himself, licks his jaw.

“I should’ve known you’d like doing that. You spent so much time licking your come out of me during the heat.”

It’s filthy, but it’s perfect when Jaskier kisses him. He can taste himself on Geralt’s tongue, smell his own need right there on his face, and if he hadn’t just come he’d be hard already. Geralt kisses him like he knows this, and like he’s making up for not being able to do it before.

His hand is as startling as it’s pleasing when he grabs his ass and squeezes. “You smell like me here. Still.”

Jaskier almost chokes on his spit. If that’s not the perfect idea to get him going again nothing is. He whines, briefly, letting the omega into his voice just to see what Geralt will do. Which is, it seems, bring him back into a kiss that turns just a shade of desperate, and just left of devastating. Jaskier likes it. He likes how much Geralt likes kissing him. He likes how he reacts to his touch, how much he enjoys their couplings.

They end up lying like that, making out until the sun does get bothersome and Jaskier winces with the oncoming headache. “How about we get cleaned up and get in some shade?”

Geralt doesn’t protest. They dip inside the lake to wash up, and climb the pier again so they can dry and Jaskier can collect his clothes before padding back to the camp to get to Geralt’s. It means pine needles stuck to the sole of his feet, but it also means Geralt, naked, for a little while longer. The shade, at least, is nice and cool, the old pine trees providing persevering protection and an excellent place to rest.

Jaskier plops down on his bedroll and stretches out, not in the mood to put his pants on just yet. He’s comfortable just in his undershirt and, who knows, maybe he goes back into the lake again.

He watches Geralt lean against a log where his saddle provides a decent backrest, and closes his eyes, listening to the noise of the forest and the evenness of his breathing.

#### -

There’s really nothing like a post-fuck nap. Jaskier wakes up covered with one of their blankets, legs curled but still sticking out from the other end. Geralt lit a fire which crackles now like the crunching of broken glass underfoot. The scent in the air is of cooked fish, lake water, and sword oil.

Jaskier’s found that as pleasant as early mornings can be before the heat ruins everything, the evenings bring forth a clearance and foresight of mind lacking beforehand. Night, itself, has become a non-issue. What with his improved senses, he doesn’t have to think where he needs to step, he just does it, and his instincts tell him in which direction not to stray. Tonight however, he can smell the natural scent of decomposing leaves, pine resin, and Geralt, turning it a far more pleasant affair than traipsing through the woods at the dead of night usually entails.

He’s never cold anymore, but Jaskier is also a creature of comfort, so he lingers in his little pile for a minute more before he feels a tug on his ankle. Jaskier looks down and sees Geralt sitting there, near him, as opposed to where he was sitting before. Jaskier hums, pleasantly surprised.

“We should be getting on,” Geralt says. Behind him, the trees are covered in the lasting bits of orange, fading at the insistence of plum-indigo.

“Already,” Jaskier says with a sigh, disappointed. He likes the lake. He likes the day they spent in it.

Jaskier sits up, feeling lazy and unmotivated. He wants to bully Geralt into laying down with him, to hold him a little, but he knows there are boundaries, and Geralt would probably kick him off if he tried.

He kneads the blanket with his hands for a long minute more, bleary, something unnamed inside him needing soothing. He can feel Geralt’s gaze, even if it disappears when he looks back at him. Geralt’s not dressed yet himself, not completely anyway. His undershirt is half undone, shoes tucked away to his side.

Fuck it, Jaskeir thinks. He’s always said what’s on his mind and this won’t be the first or the last time. He flops back onto his bedroll and says, “I think you should join me a little.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, a little exasperated.

“Come on,” Jaskier says, patting the place he makes next to him. “Just a little. Let me enjoy this.”

Geralt sighs but, to Jaskier’s surprise, scoots over and lays down, trying to maintain some sort of distance between them. However, there’s no space for two of them _and_ false modesty, especially if Geralt doesn’t want to fall into the firepit, what with a pine tree at Jaskier’s back. Their legs curl together and Jaskier drags Geralt forward until they’re face to face, and there’s little air between them left.

Jaskier looks at him, blinks slowly, because even this awkward stiltedness is more than he expected to get. Geralt wants him in his own way, but intimacy doesn’t always beget sex. Sex, in turn, doesn’t always induce it. Intimacy is knowing the softness of Geralt’s lips against his skin, but it’s also knowing his silhouette when he’s tired, when he needs the world to stop for a moment, and just what drink to get him to make it a little better. Intimacy is knowing what his hair looks like loose, just as much as it is watching Geralt brush it out and tie it up, every move of his hands familiar. Intimacy is knowing Geralt’s hurt by every child that runs from him much more than he is by adults who speak with disdain, and that he reserves himself because of that, guarding himself with harsh words and harsher demeanour, just like the pines standing watch over the lake.

Jaskier reaches over and touches Geralt’s temple. Geralt doesn’t push him away, but watches Jaskier watching him, and lets Jaskier’s fingers glide over his pale skin, from his temple, to his forehead, before curling in his hair just to tuck it behind his ear. Jaskier realises he’s scenting him. However, Geralt doesn’t seem to mind so Jaskier doesn’t stop.

With such sharp features, Jaskier thinks as he touches his cheekbone, jaw, chin, with his sparse words and golden eyes, there ought to be little softness in his face. And yet, Jaskier finds it in the softness of his brow, the creases around his eyes, and the swell of his irises as his eyes watch him, half in disquiet and half in disbelief. He looks like he’s waiting for the culling. Yet he still lays there, unmoving, his breath so quick even Jaskier notices the rise and fall of his chest.

The snarl that transforms his face when wounded, that drives away those who might hurt him when he’s already down, is tucked away leaving only the decadent arches of his lips, parted and inviting. As much as this seems to frighten him, he still chose to stay.

Jaskier’s chest aches at the sight of him. He aches, knowing that even gentleness hurts Geralt when it’s so sparingly given. It’s been a long time since he believed that Geralt could not be hurt, and it’s been longer still, since he believed Geralt is unafraid. Monsters, he can face. It’s the people that he has trouble with, and in not understanding them, he’s also failed to understand those soft, human parts of him that still remain.

The minutes stretch until Geralt’s breathing evens out, until his muscles unlock and he finally slumps, comfortable. Until even his eyes lose that fear and glaze from soft pleasure before closing. It’s devastating, the sight of him like this. Jaskier feels his throat closing up and he swallows. Disarming Geralt is a frightening power, paid back in the feelings swelling in his chest, demanding attention.

 _Oh_ , Jaskier realises. He’s in love with him.

He’s got no time to school his features into place before Geralt’s eyes open, beholding him as if he knows and sees every thought. He takes Jaskier’s hand and guides it down to his lips, where he kisses his palm and his wrist, right over his scent glands, and looks at him with obvious intention.

Jaskier feels his body reacting immediately, the scent of pheromones in the air thick. Jaskier is stupidly easy for him. It wasn’t supposed to be sexual, but now that it is it can’t be anything but, straddling some imaginary boundary between previous softness and sex. Jaskier’s quick hands help Geralt out of his pants, and Geralt helps Jaskier out of his undershirt.

When Geralt touches between his legs, he’s already wet.

“Fuck,” Geralt says with feeling, and Jaskier chuckles, hooking a leg over his hip.

“Told you,” Jaskier says. “Always want you.”

Geralt shudders and kisses him, and Jaskier has the distinctive feeling it's to shut him up. Whatever may be the original reason, however, ceased to be relevant when, after a quick prep, Geralt pushes into him. The kiss devolves into gasps, both of pleasure and exertion.

Geralt is big. He was big in his mouth, but he’s bigger like this. His scent is wonderfully pleasant, awash with his version of want that has Jaskier’s world all going soft, fuzzy and blurry, until Geralt’s all the way inside him. Jaskier manages to breathe, then pulls Geralt back into the kiss, so he can distract himself from his thoughts.

Jaskier doesn’t know how to deal with it. He’s in love with Geralt, and has been for a while. It’s not an unfamiliar feeling, this softness, and yet the realisation is startling, upsetting, and unconcealable. Better, Jaskier knows, to leave it for later. He cannot dispel it. All he can do is keep it hidden under his tongue.

The urgency from that morning is gone. Geralt holds himself on a hand tucked next to Jaskier’s head and starts fucking Jaskier like that, slow to roll his hips as if he wants to feel Jaskier entirely. His eyes never leave his face, as if cataloguing all of his expressions. It should be overwhelming--Geralt’s attention is often heavy and demanding--but Jaskier feels the warmth in it and blooms. He moans in the space between them, and Geralt seems to want to taste it straight from his lips because he kisses him, and doesn’t let up. Jaskier’s cock twitches between them, rubbing over Geralt’s belly.

Geralt’s thrusts turn deeper, harder, as if he’s chasing every gasp and moan Jaskier might let slip. His other hand brushes the hair from Jaskier’s forehead, touches his mouth, rubs his jaw and curls around his ear, so overwhelmingly softly Jaskier feels that perhaps he’s not alone in this. Some different fire burns between them, some years-long untold and unacknowledged thing crawling out from the woodwork, catching them both unaware.

Jaskier doesn’t close his eyes even when awash with pleasure -- he can’t help but watch the way Geralt gasps, breathes, moves, even as he feels soft beneath him, content to let him do all the work.

“You’re so beautiful,” Jaskier mumbles, unbidden and unprompted. It’s ripped from Jaskier’s throat more than anything, like he’s compelled to say it, captivated by the show above him. Geralt, perhaps, would have laughed at him before, but he doesn’t laugh now, only looks at him with those wide eyes of his, hurt and want mixing until Jaskier can’t recognize them without each other. Jaskier thinks the compliment lands.

He feels both outside his body, an observer to Geralt’s pleasure, as much as he feels firmly grounded there, enjoying every moment of Geralt’s hard cock pressing inside him, controlled thrusts guided by his moans bringing him closer to orgasm.

“Geralt,” he says, fingers digging into his back.

Geralt bends down until he’s lying on top of him, pressing his face into Jaskier’s neck, the mountain of his shoulders a border between this and reality. Jaskier doesn’t know what it is about the orange glow of the fading light, the scent of them together, the feeling of Geralt grinding his cock inside him, or the spike in Geralt’s pheromones that burn Jaskier, but he can do little else but think that he wants to hold Geralt like this forever.

Geralt groans against his throat as he twitches inside him, coming. The thought pushes Jaskier over the edge, and he trembles, feeling Geralt rutting into him, grinding, like he did during heat. He gasps and moans, chasing the pleasures of the aftershocks.

Eventually, Geralt stills. Jaskier breathes beneath him, cradling Geralt’s body with his own, thighs still wrapped around his hips. He can’t seem to let go of him, even though his hands and legs are growing weary.

“Just a minute,” he breathes against Geralt’s neck. “Just--give me a minute, stay like this.”

It’s too close to heat, too big of a reminder of the emotions he thought sex would distract him from, but Geralt stills as requested, and lets Jaskier holds him for a long time after.

#### -

Later, Jaskier tells himself that it doesn’t matter. He’s loved Geralt as his friend for a long time. Knowing he loves him in a different way should not make any difference. He doesn’t want to, and can’t leave him to deal with these emotions by himself, though he’d rather let them pass before they continue on as usual. He doesn’t have that luxury now.

He’s been travelling with Geralt for ten years and he will travel ten more. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that. It’s not, he thinks, a big deal. It changes nothing. And, like all his other affections, this one will pale too. If nothing else, he knows that love for Geralt is a four letter word.

#### -

With the dam broken, whatever’s been holding Geralt back in accepting Jaskier’s invitations becomes null and void. It seems that once Geralt says yes, it’s a yes all across the board.

The problem stops being the absence of sex, and rather becomes the inevitable reality of them camping more days than not--but rutting their cocks together, and making use of their hands and mouth proves to be just as pleasurable. In any case, it’s easier for Geralt to fuck him, rather than the other way around, what with Jaskier being only a few kisses and a good alpha growl away from getting wet every damn time.

It’s not that they fuck every available moment. It’s definitely not that, considering they spend most of their time travelling, the fact that they both need to sleep, Geralt needs to eat, and Roach needs tending. Still, there are days such as this one, when the heat isn’t so insufferable, and Jaskier isn’t as sleepy as much as he’s feeling frisky. It isn’t too hard to convince Geralt to lay back and watch Jaskier take his cock. Half-asleep Geralt is adorable, if he can call a mountain of a man adorable, and Jaskier kisses him just to keep that sleepiness and softness on his face. There’s something stupidly appealing about Geralt being vulnerable like that, and the issue doesn’t become Jaskier coming, but rather making Geralt come.

He supposes that goes hand in hand with whatever need he has to take care of the man and offer services to him, and so it isn’t too terribly difficult to kiss him and fuck himself on his cock until Geralt’s really moaning. He bucks his hips as if he wants to take control just for Jaskier to hold him down--because he can do that now, with his new strength.

“Just come, let me feel you.”

Geralt does come then, with a gasp, holding Jaskier. When he’s all spent and softened Jaskier shifts his hips to grind down on his cock. Sensitive, as he is, Geralt groans and kisses him, sloppy and perfect, until Jaskier’s pleasure is all but a distant thought, whereas to watch that twist of Geralt’s face all over again becomes a pressing need.

“Pleasure suits you,” he says, petting his hair even as he feels him getting hard once more. “I’m going to ride you until you have nothing else to give me.”

Geralt shivers, Jaskier can feel it, and then he barks out a short laugh. It’s not even a real laugh, not long enough, but it settles into a pleasant smile all the same, making Jaskier;s heart stumble and stutter in his chest.

Geralt looks a little glib when he says, “I’d like to see you try.”

Jaskier kisses him. Geralt is smug until Jaskier starts riding him properly again. It’s madness from then on, a terrible urgency spliced with soft amusement, the bite of his nails on Geralt’s chest opposed by the harsh grip he has on Jaskier’s thighs, Jaskier’s silence filled by Geralt’s increasingly voluminous groans. Geralt melts, in that sort of way only a man always on his guard can melt, his hands clutching at the blankets, over and over again, and each time feels better than the last. It’s a rush, having Geralt like that. A rush that borders his orgasm when it finally hits him, hours later, when they’re both downright exhausted.

Geralt’s soft, and after the last time, Jaskier doubts he’ll be raring to go any time soon, so Jaskier finally pulls off of him, just to kiss him some more because this softness is a novelty and all of his doing.

Eventually, when they both catch their breath, it’s bordering dusk. Geralt says, “I forgot you’re katakan now.”

Jaskier scrapes his teeth over his jaw, where he’s been laying kisses, tucked into Geralt’s side. “What do you mean?”

“Your stamina,” Geralt explains.

Jaskier considers this, considers the fact that he knows Geralt takes about three days to sate his appetites in a brothel, and adds it up. He smirks and says, “Finally, a good use for all this.”

Geralt, unexpectedly, laughs. It’s a nice sound. Dry, choppy, but nice. Jaskier, unable to resist, kisses him like he wanted to do from the start.

“When we get to the village,” Geralt mumbles, “I want you to ride my ass just like that.”

Jaskier nearly chokes, and feels himself flushing all over. Geralt laughs at him, but Jaskier kisses him so they’re, he thinks, even.

They clean up, but take their time. Some days, despite the rush they felt at the start, simply deserve to be savoured. Jaskier’s always been the one for pillow talk, but also the one who couldn’t bear to feel another body pressed against his own afterwards, needing distance to compose himself. Nothing better than words to draw that divide in which jokes, stories, and a song can unfold.

It’s atypical to want to touch Geralt now, feeling raw and tender, wanting to hold his arm, his hand, to press himself into him until they merge into something else. Still, it’s not an entirely unpleasant thought. Jaskier isn’t sure if that’s just Geralt’s draw or his feelings for him, and so Jaskier resists either way. Geralt himself is happy enough not to linger much in contact after sex. The exception, naturally, was the lake, but Jaskier asked for it. Geralt, by himself, never lingers.

Kestrel Mountains salute them as they pass underfoot, their snow-caps reminding Jaskier of a group of men he once saw in a village, far to the South, during Belleteyn. They linked their hands and danced around the bonfire, their white hats glowing in the firelight. That day Jaskier played for them, watched Geralt from the other side of the heaving bodies and fire, and realised his loneliness.

The moon’s full and fat in the air when Jaskier feels his skin growing warm. The sensation washes over him like a pleasant gust of air during heated summers. But summer is long gone, and even autumn is holding on by a thread. The forest grows so loud it’s deafening, the taste in his mouth only decay and blood, while the air grows rich with the scent of the two of them and the forest. The moon blinds him so Jaskier has to close his eyes, even when he hears something rip.

Geralt, who stands by Roach, doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything, and his heartbeat is slow.

Jaskier tries saying his name but is suddenly very aware of the sharp razors he has in his mouth, and a rather longer tongue than he remembered having. He pries his eyes open to look down at himself, realising, with dread, that it’s his clothes that have been ripped.

He’s so alarmed that the magic breaks, and he’s shrinking back into a human at once.

“Not my clothes!” he screeches, though the damage is already done.

He looks at Geralt, and he, the absolute bastard, laughs, and keeps laughing until Jaskier throws one perfectly useless boot at him.

#### -

Later on, when Jaskier’s wrapped in Geralt’s spare undershirt and his own spare pants, riding Roach because, between the two of them, they don’t actually own any spare boots, Geralt says, “Usually people shriek at horror at themselves, you understand.”

Jaskier sniffs, and tries not glancing at his pack, now filled with his destroyed garments.

“Do you understand how absurdly expensive my clothes are?” He turns to look at him, with a raised eyebrow. “Dying something this specific shade of blue takes three colorings. And all the patterning? Embroidered by hand. All the buckles, the buttons, and tassels? Handcrafted. The undershirt itself, perhaps may be cotton, but it took somebody time to make it too.”

“So,” Geralt concludes, sounding still too amused, “you’re mourning their work?”

“Exactly. They were compensated well, of course, but the tailors are about six weeks, and a thousand crowns behind us, provided the waiting list is short, which it never is.”

“Why wear that when travelling then?”

Jaskier gawks at him. “I have standards!”

Geralt’s smiling, and Jaskier sighs. He wants to be angry with him but then again Geralt looks happy, and he can’t, for the life of him, bring himself to ruin it.

“Cotton is comfortable. Cheap.”

“If I cannot convince you to rid yourself of that old, patched up armor for something newer, you can’t tell me silk just isn’t superior.”

“That armor,” Geralt says, “saved your ass more times than you can count.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s practical.”

“Sure it is, and I appreciate it, very much so. It keeps all your soft bits protected. It makes your shoulders look wider and your waist look cinched, and makes me think how all those buckles would feel against my skin. But--” he waves his hand demonstrably, for dramatic effect, and continues even when he smells the spike of Geralt’s pheromones, and his gaze flickering between amusement and greed,“--that doesn’t mean it isn’t old. And patched up. And probably in need of some work.”

Geralt seems to struggle for words and ends up saying, “If you were smart, you’d get armor yourself.”

“Ah, my dear Geralt,” Jaskier says, “where people see armor they see a fight. I’d much rather stay on the sidelines and narrate.”

#### -

Katakan healing is not dissimilar to witcher’s quick healing. Jaskier finds that out when he, inevitably, does have to go barefoot over the forest floor, and finds that he doesn’t mind it one bit. His feet are calloused from years of travelling, and what nicks he does get are from branches. With the weather cooling, it feels like the forest floor gets hotter in comparison. It’s a pleasant feeling all-around. He’d worry about infections and bugs, but Geralt demonstrates, via a rather gross centipede, how bugs tend to stray from katakans.

“Think of it as this: creatures who have magic, have magical problems. Vampires don’t suffer from the common flu,” Geralt tells him after he’s liberated the poor creature.

“Are there magical bugs?”

“Maybe. If creatures emerged due to the conjunction, they had to have their own version of illnesses too, but if they did, just like the creatures, they evolved. Became commonplace. Or they couldn’t acclimatize to the Continent and died out. Witchers were introduced as population control for a reason.” He rolls his shoulder, which would’ve looked like a shrug on anyone else. “Either way, infections, you don’t have to think about. Illnesses either.”

“That’s incredibly convenient,” Jaskier notes.

“It is a give and take,” Geralt replies, standing. They’ve just made camp, but dawn is just kissing the sky, brightening its color. “Are you ready?”

Jaskier nods and stands, walking with Geralt away from the circle of light cast from the fire where Roach lies, sleeping, and slides into the underbrush. Jaskier never knew how much noise he made until now. He finds his footsteps lighter, and his awkwardness compensated by enchanted senses.

Geralt proposed they start doing night runs after the last time Jaskier’s instincts took over, chasing after deer for a good half-hour before he remembered himself. It’s getting more difficult to control his senses, and the half-shifts are getting more intense.

“Let’s try to make you shift this time,” Geralt murmurs. It’s a whisper really, but in the dead of night, it’s loud enough for Jaskier to hear.

Geralt breaks into a sprint and Jaskier feels his heart trip up at the sight, before he gives chase. Shifting, as he’s come to find out, is difficult. Geralt’s theory is that the more comfortable he gets within this new body of his, the easier it will be for him. When distressed, he immediately shifted back into human form, thus the logical conclusion is that he must be calm to allow another transformation.

Jaskier doesn’t feel particularly monstrous, tonight. He remembers doing something like this, a long time ago, when he first met Geralt. He can’t recall the situation exactly, he supposes he was bored and hard pressed to stop annoying Geralt, and he wanted to pose a challenge. Geralt caught him then, pinned him, and Jaskier couldn’t stop thinking about it hours later. Now that he thinks of it, remembering Geralt’s expression, certain things come into alignment. Mainly that, even then, Jaskier wanted to kiss him, and that perhaps Geralt wouldn’t have protessed if he had.

But that chase was over and quick in minutes. Now, Jaskier can keep up with Geralt. Now they fall into step in lapses, separated by trees and underbrush, scaring the forest animals as they thrum through the woods.

In forests as old as these, the trees tend to grow larger the closer to the center you get. Geralt springs up, climbing up one like a Zerekkenian monkey, and Jaskier can’t help but feel challenged, though he knows his tree-climbing days ended in the orchard behind the estate, about the time he fell from the pear tree.

Propelling himself with his feet, though he’s uncoordinated and awkward, feels much easier than before. He can lift himself up easier, until there’s little space separating him from Geralt as they lead on opposing branches in the canopy. Geralt’s eyes luminesce in the darkness, two intangible disks of shining gold that Jaskier can’t look away from. They come closer, and then Geralt’s mouth is on his, pushing him into the branch at his back. But just as soon as he feels Geralt’s kiss on his lips it’s gone, and he hears the thump when Geralt lands on the ground.

There’s a smirk in his voice when he says, “Keep up, Jaskier.”

Sweet Melitele, just when he thought he was getting used to loving this man. Jaskier climbs down, slips, rolls onto the ground, and scrambles up, giving chase once more.

Regardless of how practical this may seem to be, there’s something comforting about doing it with Geralt even if it leads to little result. It costs them nothing, and yet it’s exhilarating, especially when they fall back into their bedrolls, some days too tired to do anything but kiss, other times desperately clawing at their clothes.

The next time Jaskier feels that particular sensation of magic washing over his skin, the warmth of fire just before the sting of the burn, Jaskier’s pinned under Geralt. There are entire three inches between them, and Jaskier’s breathing far harsher than Geralt, who looks pleased about the easy catch. Jaskier’s back is pressed into the warm earth, his heels digging grooves into the dirt. His hands are above him, held by both of Geralt’s, keeping the razors of his changed fingers away from them. Jaskier can feel the teeth in his mouth beginning to ache.

“Quickly,” Jaskier huffs, “Get me out of these clothes.”

Geralt lifts himself on his knees, and Jaskier scrambles, wiggling out of his pants, very nearly shredding his undershirt in an attempt to take it off. But once they’re a safe distance from him, Jaskier crawls out of Geralt’s grip, and feels the burn overtake him.

The next time he looks at Geralt, he’s looking from a much bigger height, and when he tries to speak, it’s only a hiss that leaves his mouth.

Geralt sits back on his heels, and says, “Huh. Not the direction I thought tonight would go.”

Jaskeir would laugh, if his voice was made for it. As it is, his breath rattles. Geralt’s dry humor is amusing at the worst of times. Seeing him like this, just sitting there, folding up his clothes and throwing them over his shoulder, makes Jaskier feel at ease with this transformation.

He tries walking. His body is lighter than he anticipates, though he feels like his mobility has largely increased. He feels full of energy, like he could leap.

He walks over to Geralt instead.

“This may be surprising to you, but I never had the chance to get this close in and personal while the katakan was still alive,” Geralt says, rising a hand and passing it gently over what constitutes as his face now--the short upturned snout, the wrinkled skin, and under his eyes.

Geralt’s hand goes into his fur where his hair would be, over his enlarged ears, to his shoulder. There’s a look in his eyes, something slow and contemplative. His other hand comes up, pries his mouth open unapologetically, to touch his teeth. Jaskier licks his finger, and when Geralt makes a face, he licks his cheek until he’s rumbling with a soft laugh.

“Come on,” Geralt says, “Give it a stretch.”

It’s wonderful, the way Geralt’s eyes shine. They’re so lovely, be it day or night. Jaskier’s captivated by them. The only comparable thing would be the ring on his finger, that--now that Jaskier checks--remains undamaged. As if magic has made it expand just for his katakan hands.

Jaskier feels his blood rushing until it’s a constant drumming in his ears. The sensation of magic is back, but this time it’s quicker. Jaskier closes his eyes, and when they’re open he’s human again, bare and naked. He should feel vulnerable like this. But he doesn’t feel the cold which would’ve been driven away by Geralt’s gaze anyway. Jaskier curls into Geralt’s body, touching his jaw, drawing his chin to the side to feel his warm breath against his fingers, and when he touches their lips together, Geralt’s trembling with anticipation.

In that moment, he understands. He passes his hand over Geralt’s cheek, pushes it into his hair, and feels Geralt lean in.

“Let me take care of you,” Jaskier says in a whisper.

Geralt’s eyes look at him, half precaution half need. He nods.

The forest floor isn’t much different from their bedrolls, and Jaskier doesn’t think them much different than the beasts that surround them. His clothes become Geralt’s headrest. There’s nothing more they need. It’s not a stumble, a fall, but rather a careful decline to the earth, when they coil together into the leaves and twigs. Jaskier straddles him, takes him out of his pants. The buttons are familiar by now, as is the hardness filling up his hand.

There’s no rush, but the one in his ears. He feels viscerally alive. Geralt keeps looking at him, so Jaskier kisses him. It’s difficult to let up after that. Jaskier feels something swelling in his chest, untangling and reeling at the same time, making him press warmth with feeling into Geralt’s lips, feeding him bits of something he seems to be starving for himself. His hand in Geralt’s hair is gentle, massaging, petting.

“You’re exquisite,” Jaskier says, kisses him again.

He can feel Geralt harden further into his hand when he starts moving it. Jaskier wishes he had a drop of oil, but keeping it slow is good too. It makes Jaskier hear what he’s never heard before: the catch in Geralt’s throat, the clicking of his voicebox, the way his breath hitches. His hands are warm on Jaskier’s hip, holding on.

“I could hold you like this for hours,” Jaskier admits. “Draw your want out, let it unspool slowly--”

“Jaskier,” Geralt gasps.

Jaskier kisses him again. His lips have gone too long without. But when he pulls away next time, he says, “Would you like that?”

Geralt doesn’t blush, never did, but he can almost imagine it about now, can taste it in the way he averts his eyes before Jaskier tells him to look at him.

There’s a plea in his eyes, but the messages are mixed, mangled and refracted. The warmth of Geralt’s body increases, and he starts dribbling precone--Geralt always gets so wet when he’s turned on. It helps his hand move quicker, but Geralt does little else but shiver.

It’s a plea for release, perhaps, though it’s obvious really that Jaskier would do anything to give him pleasure, in whatever capacity, and of whatever sort. This is something different, Jaskier thinks. It’s a window to somewhere deeper within Geralt that the man rarely let’s see the light. Jaskier shifts his fingers in his hair, pets his hairline.

“Yes?” Jaskier asks, moving his hand quicker.

Geralt shivers, gasps, his grip turning hard. His mouth works around the word, but when Jaskier asks again he says it, gasps it. “Yes,” he moans, “Jaskier--yes,yes--oh--”

Geralt comes, shoots into Jaskier’s hand, and Jaskier works him through it, shushing his wounded noises, mellowing them with his mouth until they’re all gone, the twitching in his body has quieted, and all that’s left is the post-fuck daze. Jaskier kisses Geralt through it, pets him. His grip is still harsh.

“Stay,” he says, and it sounds like it’s choked out of him. Like it would hurt him, physically, if Jaskier moved away.

“Naturally,” Jaskier says, kissing his brow.

Geralt seems to shake, almost hiss, though Jaskier isn’t doing anything to him. Nothing more, at least, that petting him. But that’s exactly what seems to hurt Geralt so much, at least, as much as he wants it. Jaskier doesn’t understand, but perhaps he doesn’t need to.

Geralt is mellow when they return to their camp. He looks lost in a daze of some kind, and when they lay to sleep finally, he lets Jaskier push their bedrolls together, and curls around him. There’s little incentive needed to brush Geralt’s hair and rub his back, until his breath is soft and warm against his chest. In the evening, when Jaskier wakes up, that tranquilness is gone, replaced by Geralt’s usual hardass behaviour, but now that Jaskier looks, he can see the cracks where Geralt put himself together on the eve, and he knows where to jam his fingers, to pry his outer shell open again.

Jaskier yawns, rubs the back of his neck, and realises that the bite mark is gone.


	4. Four

Beeches is a village aptly named for the extensive forest of beech trees that flanks its northern side. Filled dominantly with tar-makers, it sports a surprising amount of non-humans, or so Geralt informs him. He’s been there, but years prior, since it’s one of the few bigger villages on the way to Ard Carraigh. Though there’s a diagonal path from castle Hagge to Ard Carraigh, many travelers choose this route simply because it’s more convenient to restock at Beeches and Daevon, before hitting the main city. The merchants follow the same route, which means that, when they surface out of the woods at the crack of dawn, there’s an inn they can sleep in.

The innkeeper is already awake, baking the first batch of bread. She gives Jaskier a once-over from his shoe-less feet, his dirty pants, loose shirt, and gives them a single room, no extra pay for the bath.

“The merchants came in just last night,” the woman says, helpfully. “They’ll be setting up shop at noon.”

Jaskier isn’t sure the woman knows how much he appreciates it, despite his many thanks.

As far as one-bed rooms go, Jaskier cannot complain. He does fall asleep as soon as he’s clean, and only senses Geralt jostling him when he lays beside him. There’s too much distance between them again. Jaskier would protest, but he closes his eyes just to rest them, and when he opens them again it’s day and Geralt’s gone. He pads over to the windows to close the shutters, and returns to bed.

A strange scent in the air wakes Jaskier up, this time for good. It smells like him but altered--like his mother and father’s scents. He can’t place it properly, and every association the scent forms in his mind is disconcerting--he can’t imagine Redanian aristocracy venturing anywhere near Kaedwen, but the reminder makes him uncomfortable.

The only reasonable conclusion Jaskier can draw is that someone in the tavern has a far too familiar scent to his own, which Jaskier can smell thanks to his katakan abilities. He wants nothing to do with it, so he decides against going downstairs. Instead, he rolls into Geralt’s side of the bed, burying his face in the pillow. That’s far better. Geralt’s scent calms him, and he feels pliant when he hears Geralt’s soft feet brushing over the stairs.

The man’s always quiet, as if he doesn’t want to usurp more space than he has to. As if he’d rather pass through life like a wraith, leaving little trace than that which causes his ire. The notion makes Jaskier exceedingly sad.

Geralt pushes open the door and Jaskier turns his head to watch him. He’s balancing two bowls on one hand, which is definitely a talent, while the other’s wrapped around a pair of boots.

“Oh Geralt,” Jaskier says, lifting himself up. “You didn’t.”

Geralt grunts and throws the boots at him. It’s a good throw--Jaskier actually catches them.

“The inn-keeper insisted,” Geralt says, gesturing towards the food.

“I can’t believe you got me shoes,” Jaskier says looking at the boots. There are even socks inside. He shoves his feet inside one, then the other, luxuriating in the feeling of supple leather and good craftsmanship. They’re just his size, and just right too. They’re a little tall--not his usual style--rising above his knees, but considering the dirt roads and oncoming rain that’s inevitable for the time of the year--winter is already there, they’re just waiting for the weather to break--Jaskier can’t complain.

He gets up and struts. It’s regrettable that inn rooms rarely, if ever, come with full-length mirror. Then again, he’s not seen one in months, since his last stint at court. Instead, he turns to Geralt and says, “How do I look?”

“Like you have boots on,” Geralt replies, taking a seat to eat.

Jaskier clicks his tongue. That’s just to be expected really. “Well,” he says, “I suppose I need to thank you. You shouldn’t have gone out of your way.”

Geralt doesn’t acknowledge this, which is also very on brand. Gods forbid Geralt learn how to handle anyone thanking him.

Jaskier sits back onto the bed and crosses his legs. “I suppose tonight I should entertain, if the madam will allow.”

“Madam,” Geralt parrots, sarcasm fresh on his tongue. “This isn’t a brothel.”

“Mm, pity really.”

Geralt snorts, as annoyed as he’s amused. Jaskier’s never known someone quite so resistant to his charms. Then again, if he managed to bed Geralt, he’s got really nothing to worry about on that front. He stands to peek through the shutters, and sees the sun slowly going down. The merchants are still out.

Jaskier doesn’t own much coin, not right now since there’s not been many places he can entertain, but he bets he’ll be able to remedy the issue tonight.

“I’m popping down,” he declares, trying to straighten out his clothes.

Geralt’s black shirt that Jaskier’s appropriated as his own matches with his spare pants and the light leather boots. Though he was hesitant to take them at first--after all, they’re auburn, as opposed to Jaskier’s usual favored coloring--he’s rather thankful he had them in his pack now. At least he doesn’t look like a multi-colored court jester. Jaskier pushes his hand through his hair, decides to comb it out because even in desperate times a wooden cone is better than nothing, and grabs his coin purse before marching out.

Unlike Geralt, Jaskier has no issue making sound. It startles the innkeeper but she smiles when she sees him. “They fit you well?”

“Like a dream,” Jaskier replies, twirling for effect. Remembering Geralt’s abhorrent manners, he tacks on, “By the by, the lunch was delicious, thank you very much. Geralt will be down to bring back the bowls.”

The woman laughs again. “Go already, I see one place can’t hold you.”

Jaskier flashes her his best smile and bolts out. There’s two merchant caravans that beget his attention, and as usual, he concerns himself primarily with the merchant that sells clothes.

“You know,” the man behind the stall says, an easy smile on his face as he gestures towards Jaskier’s feet, “the witcher spent _some_ time deciding.”

Jaskier arches an eyebrow.

Seeing he’s invited to speak more, not that merchants ever need much invitation, he continues. “Oh yes, I have to admit, I didn’t think witchers cared about taste but--” he rolls his shoulder, “--now I understand.”

“They’re beautiful,” Jaskier replies. “Can I see what else you have on offer?”

“Oh, naturally,” the man says, and proceeds to showcase everything from shirts, doublets, pants, more shoes, down to the finaries such as perfumed oils. They smell divine but to his nose just a bit too sharp.

“My friend here,” the merchant gestures, “has herbs and medicine supplies.”

The woman in question glances at her friend from where she’s just weighed out a measure of some sort of powder for a woman, and packed it up.

“Herbs, poultices, potions,” she says in a drone, monotonous voice that speaks of years repeating the same phrase. Her gaze assesses him passively, but lingers just a tad too long for comfort. Her voice grows subtle and rich with suggestion when she adds, “ _Other_ services.”

Jaskier pretends he understands and nods.

“Otherwise,” she continues her one-sided subtle conversation--it grates, Jaskier really wants to know what it’s about--”I have relaxing oils. Good, at least, after a long time on your feet.”

“That,” Jaskier says. “Please.”

The woman, though serious, cracks a smile. “Ah, so it’s like that.”

She turns, and produces a rather sturdy glass bottle filled with golden oil. Upon uncorking it Jaskeir sniffs, and the scent of chamomile blossoms in his nose. Without thinking further, Jaskier buys it. Unlike him, Geralt doesn’t usually keep stock of sexual aids, so a little help is needed; he _did_ ask, after all, and if he’s changed his mind they can use it for its intended purpose.

With the oil goes the last of his coin, so he has to disappoint the other merchant when he refuses to buy anything more. However, Jaskier doesn’t part before saying, “Do drop by the inn tonight. I’ll be playing a little something.”

It’s only upon his return that he asks the permission of the innkeeper, but he knows well enough he’ll be allowed to play, especially if he takes his payment in services rendered. Jaskier is looking forward to spending another night in a bed.

He pops up to grab his lute--it’s just about time that he ought to start working. Geralt doesn’t look up from where he’s cleaning his shoes at the table, but he does say, “Why are we spending another night?”

He’s heard Jaskier’s conversation downstairs, Jaskier concludes.

“Because I can earn some coin tonight.”

Geralt’s eyebrow arches though his eyes don’t look at him. ”We could leave immediately after you’re done.”

Jaskier hums and uncorks the bottle of oil. “I rather had other ideas.”

He sees when the scent hits Geralt’s nose. He turns to look at him at once, gaze growing intent, and intense.

Jaskier smiles. “You did ask.”

Geralt has to admit that indeed, he did. His gaze lingers on Jaskier. “Now?” he ends up asking.

“After. Have a bath, relax. It’s only a couple of hours.”

He isn’t sure he could extricate himself from the bed and leave Geralt alone if he manages to do what he intends. Jaskier walks forward, stoppers up the oil, and puts it on the table.

“And I’ll leave this here,” he says, looking Geralt in the eye. The suggestion is obvious, but there mostly out of curiosity. He wonders if Geralt will spread himself on his fingers first, dominate that conversation, or if he’ll let Jaskier do it.

“Also, _liar_ . You _like_ the boots,” Jaskier says.

“Never said I disliked them,” Geralt replies.

He laughs, and is tempted to kiss Geralt for a brief, if arresting, moment. There’s certainly something about standing above him which makes heated thoughts imminent and unavoidable, but, in the end, he leaves him be in favor of trudging downstairs.

#### -

The crowd is not at all abysmal as Jaskier expected. The thing about performing in small countryside inns, he’s learned, is not to set himself apart. In villages, most people want to be entertained, which means they want to listen to stories, anecdotes, and history, but above all, they like listening to songs they have heard before. It means taking requests--something Jaskier is happy to do. There’s no use playing compositions from Redanian court, he definitely won’t be well-compensated for them, so he plays the songs he knows, and improvises on those he doesn’t. For his troubles, he’s brought a drink from his merchant friend.

It’s always rude, turning away drinks. No matter the excuse it feels like a rejection, and he knows people well enough by now to know they’d be hurt over it, no matter how irrational the feeling is. Still, he doesn’t wish to vomit all over them so he says, “I’m really sorry, but I don’t drink.”

The merchant makes a face as if he wants to ask why, before he cocks his head and suddenly reddens. “Oh,” he says, “Oh, of course. My apologies.”

Jaskier can’t believe he has to be in the ass-end of nowhere to find properly polite people. “No apologies needed.”

Some songs he does not know, but he knows his lute, and the others sing with him, clap, until he gets the cords right, the words straight, and makes a real song out of it. The thing about villages like this is that they don’t hear music often, they don’t experience art often, so when they do, they appreciate it far more than the nobles of Oxenfurt and Novigrad.

Jaskier comes away with a decent earning by the end of the night. Satisfied, he ambles up to their room. But whatever thoughts he had leave him when he passes through the doors.

Geralt is in the bed. Geralt is in the bed, naked, the scent in the air of the oil and his sweat. It staggers him.

Jaskier can see shadows play across the expanse of Geralt’s back which is turned towards him. Even when Geralt shifts on his back to look at him, expectant, Jaskier needs a moment more to unstick his feet from the floor. The shadows don’t hide anything, only enhance, and Geralt’s paleness, startling in the day, looks ethereal in the light of the candles.

He supposes Geralt would hate him for that adjective, so he doesn’t voice it. Instead, he swallows, and whispers, “Sweet Melitele.”

It’s impossible to do anything but go to the bed, so inviting now with Geralt in it. He’s clothed, booted, but that doesn’t stop him from sliding his hands over Geralt’s legs up to his thighs.

“Come on,” Geralt says, “take off your clothes.”

“In a minute,” Jaskier says, drunk on Geralt’s scent in an instant. He’s hard, and the musk of his pleasure has Jaskier’s mind in a kind of a haze. He rubs his hands over his thighs, digging his fingers in.

“Did you stretch?” Jaskier asks. Suddenly, he needs to hear it.

After a moment, Geralt admits, “Yes.”

Jaskier knows, and yet it makes him shiver nonetheless. “I see,” he murmurs against Geralt's thigh. He traces his lips up his inseam. “How many?”

“Jaskier,” Geralt warns.

“How many fingers,” Jaskier asks, looking up.

Geralt doesn’t blush. He isn’t shy. But he isn’t comfortable with Jaskier’s particular brand of bed talk quite yet either. “Two,” he drags out.

“I see,” Jaskier parrots. He feels Geralt shivering when he presses his thumb over his hole. It twitches, and Jaskier hums. His lips pass over Geralt’s cock, licking gently over the shaft.

He pushes two fingers inside Geralt, and feels him give easily. He’s soft, pliant, warm and wet inside. Jaskier has no doubt that he could fuck Geralt immediately, without further delay. And yet. Jaskier lingers, scissoring him, curling his fingers, mouthing at his cock, until it twitches, spurting out precome. He licks it up.

“Let’s see if we can get you to three,” Jaskier says, and wraps his mouth around Geralt’s cock.

Geralt’s breath is shaky and loud to Jaskier’s ears, even when his hand buries itself in Jaskier’s hair. He adds the third finger, and isn’t shy about pushing them open, or fucking Geralt on them.

“I thought,” Geralt says, voice strained, “you wanted to skip this.”

Jaskier wraps his other hand around his cock, and lets Geralt sink into his mouth. He doesn’t know how long Geralt’s been working himself up like this, but he’s already overflowing, and Jaskier has to keep swallowing his precome mixed with Jaskier’s spit. He sucks, hard, no preamble, no warming up.

Geralt shudders, fingers curling, tugging on his hair. Pleased, Jaskier focuses more on his fingers, driving them into Geralt until he finds the spot that makes his thighs shake around his head, threatening to close around his ears.

Jaskier touches one with his free hand, massaging it where it joins Geralt’s hip until it’s down again. He can feel Geralt’s muscles twitching like that, can feel them tensing every time he strikes that spot, just like Geralt clenches around him, his breathing harsh, sounds catching in his throat.

He’s finished singing, and he can let him in his throat--he’s had enough practice to know how to do it now. He swallows Geralt down until his cock is hitting the back of his throat. Geralt’s legs tense up again, his voice grows breathy with a cut-off whine, and Jaskier only needs to repeat it and curl his fingers into that sweet spot before he’s shooting down his throat. Jaskier swallows, and keeps swallowing even when Geralt’s all done, and the hand in his hair is pulling him off. Jaskier lets Geralt’s half-hard cock slip out of his mouth.

He swallows a couple of times, before he grins and says, “Are you turning into a quick shot?”

Geralt gives him a look, though still clearly shaking from the orgasm, and Jaskier laughs. He lets him be as he sits at the foot of the bed, and stands to clean his hands in the washbasin before he toes off his new boots, tugs off his shirt and pants, and folds them up.

Geralt watches him and Jaskier realises the obvious only when he shoves the boots next to the clothes. “Oh you like the boots in _that_ way. Pervert. Should I wear them while I fuck you?”

“Hmm, they’d look good on you.”

“Oh now you admit it,” Jaskier says, rejoining Geralt on the bed. He kisses his way from Geralt’s belly, over his chest to meet his mouth, and it’s just that little bit of filth that has Geralt groaning.

“Next time, I’ll let you fuck me in them,” Jaskier says. He touches Geralt’s face. “Now though. How about you get on your hands and knees.”

Geralt does, and with little complaint. He doesn’t even look across his shoulder when he says, “Don’t be gentle.”

Jaskier feels a shiver go down his spine, his cock twitching. Oh Jaskier will give it to him as hard as he can. And then he’ll give him extra. “Alright,” he says, since Geralt can’t see him nod.

He passes his hands over Geralt’s back. It’s a beautiful back. Geralt’s got shoulders for days, strength in them coiled, the muscles divided only by the long line of his spine where now perspiration cools. Yet his waist is gentle, two divots signifying the beginning of his hips, before melting into soft flesh which Jaskier puts to his mouth now. He doesn’t mind the taste of oil on his tongue, not when he feels Geralt’s hole twitching around him. He’s wanted to get his mouth on Geralt’s ass for so long, he can’t believe he’s actually doing it. He sqeezes his cheeks, massaging the muscle up and down and up, before spreading Geralt to fuck his tongue inside. He scratches his nails down to feel him shiver, before connecting his hands to Geralt’s ass in a soft slap, just to hear the hiss from Geralt’s mouth even as he rubs the skin to soothe the sting.

“Jaskier,” Geralt hisses. It’s a reproach. Granted, he’s perhaps got a little overzealous. Jaskier lets one hand drop low, to touch Geralt’s cock, and feels it hard again, swollen. Geralt’s, in fact, leaking.

“You should’ve told me you like your ass played with earlier,” Jaskier hums, jerking him off. “Would’ve spread you like this sooner.”

“Inside me,” Geralt pants. “Now.”

“You want to come on my cock?” Jaskier asks, loving to tease. However, he doesn’t expect Geralt to reply in affirmative.

Jaskier feels himself twitching. He can’t help hissing when he touches his cock, to alleviate some of his urgency while he gets on his knees behind Geralt. There’s really no sight like having Geralt’s hip in one hand, holding him open, while guiding his cock inside him. Geralt’s tight, and he’s clearly not been doing this recently, so Jaskier eases into him slowly, and begins rolling his hips just as carefully. They have time, and this, for Jaskier, is only a warm up. As much as he’d like to come, he’s overwhelmed with the need to make Geralt fall apart first, and so he focuses less on his pleasure, and more on Geralt’s.

However, as per usual, Geralt doesn’t give him any pointers, any hints, or any words of instruction. He breathes, bears down, and squeezes around him, and Jaskier has to measure his thrusts on the way his breath hitches, on the way his fists squeeze the sheets, and on the way he shivers. The first sound slips from his throat when Jaskier shifts his hips, and so he keeps the angle, just speeds up into a comfortably needy pace. He’s not going hard, not yet in any case, seeing how Geralt twitches all around him when he occasionally grinds his cock inside.

And yet, despite it being clearly good, Geralt growls out a low, “Come _on_.”

It pushes something inside Jaskier, something that has him grabbing Geralt’s shoulder and slamming into him. He knocks the breath from Geralt, and it’s a good sign. Jaskier has no idea how to regulate his strength, but it doesn’t seem that Geralt minds. No, his strength is the point.

It feels brutal, the way he fucks into Geralt, burying himself inside his heat over and over again, but he finds some savage pleasure in that brutality, in the fact that Geralt asked for it, needed it so much he put it to words. The perverseness comes in the sound of their bodies colliding, in the feeling of Geralt’s thighs against his, his balls slapping against Geralt’s ass, the way he can smell him leaking precome, the way he knows how it tastes. Geralt smells of spices and want. It’s slowly becoming Jaskier’s favorite.

The scent grows stronger when he tightens around Jaskier, twitching as he gasps, tries to breathe but can’t. Then Jaskier can smell his come. He laughs, and fucks Geralt through it.

Jaskier must have put too much pressure on Geralt’s shoulder because he goes down on his elbows. Suddenly, the arch of Geralt’s back is there, beautiful, fucking perfect, with Geralt’s head turned to the side as he tries to breathe. Jaskier slows down just to fuck into him and then grind, mixing the two together. He knows Geralt usually doesn’t soften all the way--he’s an alpha even out of heat--and this, the way he is now? Looking in the distance? Jaskier needs to make him come again.

It’s a need that urges him even when he feels the first strain in his belly. Suddenly, Jaskier understands. With witcher’s stamina, it’s difficult to be sated in this way. Unless, Jaskier thinks, he has an appropriate partner.

He exchanges the speed of his thrusts for the harshness, depth, until he sees Geralt’s face screwing up, until he hears the first groan. Jaskier presses down on the back of his neck, his hand tangling with Geralts as be bows over him to fuck him into the sheets they’ve already messed up.

“Come on, darling,” Jaskier says, pushing on Geralt’s wrist. “You can give me one more.”

He thinks he sees some fight left in Geralt, but he only moans when he opens his eyes, and shakes. Jaskier understands. He’s been in his position. Overstimulation makes it too much and not enough, and Geralt doesn’t seem to know how to deal with it. It’s a sweet pleasure, and Jaskier sees it surfacing on Geralt’s face as his eyes glass over; it’s in the way he moans, as if he’s hurting, yet shakes as he comes across the sheets and himself once again.

“That’s it,” Jaskier says into his ear. “Good.”

Jaskier shudders then, overwhelmed by his own pleasure. His orgasm takes him by surprise, tackles him, held off for too long. But Jaskier isn’t swallowed under the pleasure. No, he shakes with it, and fucks his come into Geralt’s sloppy little wet and warm hole, until he can’t catch his breath.

He feels a strain in his belly and thighs as he lifts off, stilling to kiss Geralt’s back. He licks it while he reaches around to touch his cock, squeezes it just to feel Geralt tightening around him, twitching uncontrollably.

Jaskier covers Geralt’s back, though it’s entirely too warm, kissing, mouthing, and biting over his skin. He hums, touches Geralt’s hair, sneaks a hand to touch his forehead.

“You alright?” he asks, though he doesn’t expect a reply.

Geralt doesn’t give him one. He shakes, and so Jaskier kisses the side of his face, pets him, and slowly starts to grind. “You liking this, love? You feel so good around me,” Jaskier says, kissing his neck. “You’re messy from me now, can you feel it? Can you feel how much deeper I can go because of it?”

He reaches down to squeeze one of his pecks. The muscle fits in his hand perfectly.

The way he grinds inside him is borderline gentle in comparison with the previous fucking. He barely even pulls out, just keeps Geralt on his cock, grinding softly, slowly, just to feel him, and to fill his cock again for the next round.

“Beautiful,” Jaskier says when Geralt moans. “You’re feeling it too, huh.”

He digs his hand into Geralt’s belly, touches his filing cock, and begins laying kisses over his skin, whispering dirty things in his ear, and petting his hair. Eventually, Geralt begins to shake again.

“Ah,” Jaskier says, “I’ve got you, Geralt. I have you.”

He wraps his hand underneath him to hold onto his shoulder for better leverage. Geralt shifts, clasping his hands together in a white-knuckled grip as he bows his head between his elbows, the jut of his spine parting his hair where Jaskier has gotten used to seeing the glint of his chain. Like every time, during their couplings Geralt has removed his silver chain. It’s then that Jaskier realises that it isn’t the metal which attracts his attention, but the vulnerability of seeing Geralt’s nape.

Jaskier pants, winded, breathing over it. He can feel Geralt’s swollen cock in his hand twitch. Jaskier’s thighs burn but god for what a reward. The light the candles cast on them are red-fire, Geralt’s skin turning orange from it, beautiful in all it’s dips and shadows, and now marked with his teeth and bruises, and Jaskier can’t resist, he can’t. He sets his teeth to Geralt’s neck and bites, and feels Geralt coming. He can’t refrain--he follows him right after.

An omega’s bite doesn’t carry the same meaning. And yet, for Geralt, it might just as well. But Jaskier can't think about it. He can’t think about anything at all as he comes inside Geralt, and shakes afterwards.

He doesn’t know how long they linger like that, but he feels his body cooling, and so he shifts, pulling out of him, to smell of his own come perfuming the air. Jaskier shifts to let Geralt lay down, and he lays with him, at his back, touching him, unable to do anything else. He needs this closeness, and he knows Geralt needs it too, no matter the way he refuses it to himself. He can feel Geralt shaking, and he knows it’s not just from fucking.

He should let Geralt rest. Yet the only thing Jaskier eventually forces himself to do is tug him onto his back again. Geralt’s face is a mess, unrestrained and uncontrolled, and his eyes are both distant and far too present. Jaskier understands that. Geralt would let him do anything, the way he is now.

For now, he just kisses him, and pets his sweaty hair. “You did so well,” Jaskier says between kisses. “You’re so good for me, Geralt.”

Geralt seems half pained and half pleased, and so Jaskier keeps touching him. Eventually, he slides down between Geralt’s legs, lapping the come off his belly and cock, before he licks himself from Geralt’s twitching, leaking hole. Jaskier isn’t possessive. He doesn’t _do_ possessive. It’s not the name of his game. Others wish to possess him and fail. Yet, it’s there, present, pressing pleasantly against his mind when he straightens out, his cock hard again.

The punched out whine Geralt makes when Jaskier sinks back inside him almost makes him come. He snaps his hips, hard, to compensate. Then he pushes Geralt’s legs up, holding them under each knee, and says, “Hold.”

Geralt, surprisingly, listens. Sweet Melitele, Jaskier thinks. The sight of Geralt holding his legs open for him _alone_ could finish him off. Jaskier resists that particular temptation and rolls his hips until he finds a proper angle. With his hands now free, he lays one on Geralt’s hip, the other on his cock, and brushes the pads of his fingers over him softly, rubbing incessantly only over his crown, and the patch of skin where his knot usually swells. Then he goes lower still, past his balls, to press his thumb into his perineum even as he knows he’s nailed his prostate.

Geralt’s body seizes, head digging back into the sheets as his chest collapses and lifts with every harsh breath. His cock twitches and his balls draw up, full and in need of spending. Geralt makes too pretty of a picture when he’s helpless.

There’s too much trust involved in this, too much power shoved into his hands. Jaskier didn’t realise it would be like this. But now that he has it, he can only make the best of it.

He shifts, towering over him, and curls his hand around the back of Geralt’s neck. It’s as good a leverage as any with his hand on Geralt’s hip, and he slams back into him as he presses the bite that must sting. He can’t be even-hearted about this, not when Geralt’s so loose and pliant for him. It’s night, and Jaskier feels too much energy coursing through his body. He fears, no, he knows, he could do this all night. Perhaps, Jaskier thinks, that’s the point.

He fucks Geralt until he’s quivering. He closes his eyes with the sting of sweat, but inevitably returns to watch him just in time to see Geralt crying out. Jaskier has to lean to shut him up, to kiss him, even though the slap of their hips and the groaning of the bed are telling enough as is. Jaskier comes like that, feeling Geralt’s hard cock digging into his stomach. He doesn’t hesitate to continue, even though he’s become sensitive. He just can’t help it. There’s something about Geralt like this, something that drives him wild, drives him to madness.

Jaskier licks into Geralt’s mouth, and grinds inside.

#### -

When their bodies have exhausted themselves, Jaskier manages to mop up the mess between them, and lays down, holding Geralt close to his chest. Geralt’s shaking turns to shivering, shivering turns to trembling, and when the aftereffects of their coupling have passed, he lets himself melt into the embrace.

Jaskier pets him, kisses his temples and the crown of his hair, feeling something swell in his chest. Gods, Jaskier thinks. He can’t fall asleep, not with Geralt like this. Not when he’s so vulnerable. He stands watch through dawn, into the first rays of morning which manage to sneak through the shutters like thieves in the night. Then the morning ripens, grey and overcast. Geralt sleep soundly through it, and well into the hazy hours of midday.

Jaskier is in a daze himself, floating between sleep and wakefulness, where softness is paramount and gentle on his mind, the darkness swaddling his senses, comfort found in the great outline of Geralt’s shoulder. Jaskier doesn’t have to open his eyes to know him. He would know him blind, by smell alone. He’d know him by his heartbeat-- the slow lonely drum beating beneath the mountaintop, signaling the passage of hours like a distant bell and the crowing of a capon. It quickens when he draws the breath of waking, and the strength of his hands, the nature of his touch, changes as he lets himself take more, before reality quite connects.

Yet, he doesn’t pull away, like innumerable times before. He sighs, breath warm against Jaskier’s throat, and stills once again. He touches Jaskier’s skin, like he wants to learn the texture, as if he’s wanted to do so before but never had the chance. It lulls Jaskier to sleep.

When he wakes, the bed’s empty.

#### -

The strange scent from the tavern follows him. It grows so strong that it becomes unignorable. In fact, it’s so strong Jaskier realises it’s coming from him, which confuses and alarms him in turn. It would be easy if it were just a case of mistaken perfume, or smelling of a lover you won’t see again. This is something different.

For one, he _knows_ what he smells like. Scents are, inherently, difficult to dismantle, but he’s familiar with his own musk that sits comfortably with his omega scent, which has been amplified by the recent amazing acrobatic sex he’s been having. On the road, he smells like it, ground, rain, nature, cloves and citrus when he has his clothes powdered, lye soap when he doesn’t, and perhaps he’s been smelling of Geralt as of late, simply because he’s been dressed in his clothes, and covered in his come, inside, outside, all the ways that matter.

For another, scents don’t just _change_ . Over a period of time _yes_ , but it's a subtle mutation that comes with age. Sudden shifts mean something is seriously wrong--usually an illness, an infection, or a bond.

He can’t place it, and it goes on long enough that he can’t help but stop, quite literally, in the middle of the road and say, “Do I smell different to you?”

Geralt takes a careful lungful and says, “Not really.”

“Fine. Then I smell different to myself and it’s been annoying me.”

It’s still a strange occurrence--admitting something is wrong--but Geralt’s not turned him away once yet.

Geralt lets go of Roach and approaches, close enough for Jaskier’s heart to thump quickly for a minute before settling down into the pleasantness of Geralt’s touch when he cups his face. Very unceremoniously, he lowers his head and presses his nose to Jaskier’s neck, smelling him there, and licks his skin for good measure, it seems just to have Jaskier shiver. He snuffles over his scent glands, his other hand pressing into the ones on Jaskier’s wrists, prompting them to overproduce. Jaskier, as much as he’s not thinking about sex, can’t help the way his body reacts.

“Geralt,” he complains, “I don’t want to be wet in my trousers.”

That spikes Geralt’s scent, which makes Jaskier somewhat amused. It’s nice to know he’s always wanted.

Geralt releases him with only a hint of hesitance. “You smell no different than you did during the heat.”

“Then think back before the heat,” Jaskeir says. “After a decade, you must’ve caught a whiff along the way. Could it be because of the bite?”

He sees Geralt’s expression growing serious. He’d seemed relieved when Jaskier told him it was gone, but he appears different now.

“It’s the venom that changes the scent and leaves the mark. If the mark’s gone, then it means your body’s gotten rid of the toxin. I don’t think it’s that.” He contemplates it, but in the end doesn’t have answers for Jaskier beside a simple, “I don’t know.”

Jaskier can’t even be frustrated with him, considering the fact that Geralt, always, inevitably, accepts the limitations of his own knowledge, with the intention of correcting himself.

As if to reassure him, Geralt continues. “It’s familiar though. I’ll keep an eye on it. We can ask if they have a healer next village.”

“Alright,” Jaskier agrees, and feels better having brought it up. This, something as simple as this, would have been unimaginable before. But Geralt doesn’t give it much import, and so Jaskier can almost pretend it’s normal, that he’s something more in Geralt’s eyes than an easy friend and part-time entertainment.

Jaskier doesn’t feel particularly different anymore. He feels that, with his transformation, some other magic has been broken, and the sun now does truly just give him migraines, whether he’s eaten or not. His appetite itself has grown smaller, and, after one very carefully spent night trying regular food again, it doesn’t cause him to be violently ill anymore. It just doesn’t satiate him. He can taste it, but his stomach remains a neutral void that aches only at the scent of blood. Jaskier really isn’t into eating badly prepared meat, because whatever Geralt says, he absolutely undercooks his meat. Regular food, Jaskier decides, he’s going to leave for good roasts, potatoes cooked in lard, pies, chocolate and wine. If they ever get to that dreaded Ard Carraigh.

But rather than the main city of the country, which looms in front of them like a fatamorgana, a month and some change in front of them if they’re quick--they arrive at yet another village. It doesn’t hold more than a nice merchant, and plenty of kids running around, which is nice in its own way. It means the village will exist for a while yet. The bit of crowd they come across is made by a caravan trading with the locals.

It seems they’ve come just in the nick of time, because Jaskier really does need new clothes, whatever it takes, even elbowing his way to the stand. With Geralt by his side, it’s easy to cut the path, which leaves him with more time to peruse through the wares. He needs an appropriately fitting brown doublet, and while there are a few, he isn’t so sure about the color.

He’s about to pick one when he feels a kid connect to his leg. He looks down at the two year old--the child really couldn’t be older than that--and looks into his brown eyes.

“You’re not my moma,” he says. Then his wide brown eyes gloss over just as his face crumbles, goes red, and breaks like a river dam.

Jaskier has never been particularly good with children mostly because he’s a) never had children around him to begin with and b) never tried correcting that. They’re nice from afar. Little people. And thus, he thinks it’s pretty natural that he panics that there’s a crying kid standing there beside him.

“Oh shit,” he says and crouches down. “Hey look, okay let’s go find your mom then alright? Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”

The kid, praised be Melitele, stops crying, and proceeds to agree to climb on Jaskier’s shoulder so he can see above the crowd and spot the lady that’s his mother. Jaskier gives Geralt a look.

“Could you--”  
  
Geralt nods, and Jaskier points out the doublet. Sometimes, things are easy with Geralt.

Jaskier proceeds to push through the crowd, but he doesn’t even wander far until he sees a hand rising up, and hearing the woman’s voice before she appears, fighting the crowd back with her elbows and a girthy pregnant belly.

Jaskier doesn’t see how the kid could possibly mistake him for his mother considering the only similarity between them is that she’s wearing pants.

“Oh you silly goose,” she says to the kid, and takes him from Jaskier to hug him very, very tightly. The kid starts crying again, but it seems in relief, and then giggles as his mother talks to him.

Watching that feels like he’s invading on a private moment, so he decides on a strategic retreat. He’s about to get the hell away from there when he smells Geralt, just before he feels him right against his back.

Jaskier glances across his shoulder just to see Geralt quirking an eyebrow at him. “You stealing kids now?”

“Don’t joke about that here,” Jaskier replies in hushed tones. Small villages, people get ideas.

The kid sniffles something about smells just before the woman laughs, and says, “Of course he did kiddo.” She mutters something back to him before she looks at them and says, “Thanks for finding him. I’m not so worried with locals, but with so many people passing by--”

“Naturally,” Jaskier smiles. “It’s a nice village, this. Convenient too, to have a merchant caravan passing through.”

“Oh yeah,” the woman says, it seems in no hurry to go back to her own business. “Since Buina river is so close, merchants like to take the boat from Pontar. Safer, some say. I’m Jelena.”

“Jaskier,” he replies, nodding, since her hands are busy with the kid. Jaskier gestures behind himself and says, “This grouch is Geralt.”

Geralt huffs and pushes his rucksack to him. Inside, he sees the doublet and a brand new undershirt. Jaskier trills, and says, “Now only to find somewhere to get dressed.”

Jelena laughs. “Well, we may not have an inn, but I have a kitchen, if you’d like to make use of it.”

Jaskier gasps. “Goddess, you are. Thank you so much.”

Jelena gestures and they follow after her. Away from the crowd, Jaskier can smell her sweet omega scent, something that soothes him. Omegas can and do get territorial sometimes, but when it’s like this, easy, in passing, when it’s just people being people rather than sex and marriage politics, Jaskier has found easy friendships with other omegas. Primary gender aside, it seems that they all seem to understand the unspoken hardship of general existence as one, and thus don’t tend to get in each other’s way.

The walk isn’t long. She sets him up in the kitchen, then goes back to the living room part to wait with Geralt. In truth it’s a small space, and they can hear each other perfectly well even through closed doors, but sometimes the sense of privacy is paramount.

“I’m surprised, actually,” Jelena says. “I thought witchers travelled alone.”

The kitchen smells like children, food, and her scent. Jaskier washes up thanks to the washbasin Jelena has given him, and puts on his new undershirt, cotton, frilly, white, smelling of some sort of herb. Sage, perhaps. The doublet is passable, meaning that it’s unicolor. That’s as much as he can say about it. Better than just wearing Geralt’s undershirt--as much as he loves the idea he always feels underdressed. He’s in the presentation business, showmanship, and he can’t do that looking rough.

“Usually,” Geralt agrees. There’s bashfulness in his tone which surprises Jaskier to hear. He sounds almost fond when he adds, “but you tell _him_ that.”

She laughs.

At least, Jaskier thinks, it matches the brown of his pants. He can embroid it a bit on the road. Give it a personal touch. It’s powdered, smelling of cloves. Neutral. Jaskier dresses, packs Geralt’s shirt into his pack and notices, only then, Geralt’s bought oil. Jaskier flushes, pleased. So he did indeed like that. Very good to know.

“Oh hush,” Jaskier says, doing up his doublet. “You’ve put up with me for ten years, you’ll put up with ten more.”

He exits the kitchen, and sees Geralt’s face go through a frown, into an expression Jaskier knows--it’s when he wants to say something witty.

It’s all the warning he gets before Geralt says, “Put up with? What happened to your company being a gift and a right you offer only to the privileged?”

“Shut up and tell me I look good,” Jaskier replies.

Geralt’s mouth quirks up, knowing he’s won. Still, his face softens as he says, “You look good.”

“Thank you,” Jaskier preens. “What sort of a bard doesn’t look good?”

“The bad kind, surely,” Jelena replies. “Though I’ve not come across many. Are you two going to the big city?”

“Yes,” Geralt replies. “And we should be on our way. Thank you so much for hosting us Jelena, it’s been a pleasure.”

She smiles, and Jaskier can see the crow’s feet around her eyes. It’s downright charming.

“Hopefully you find a place in due date,” she says and waves them off.

Jaskier is pretty happy about his doublet and undershirt, and shows Geralt just how much when they finally stop later, or rather, earlier next morning.

#### -

They’re two days past that village, on a nice little stretch of road when Geralt stops. Just dead on, stops in his tracks, and it’s so startling that Jaskier stops as well. Geralt doesn’t do dramatic pauses. In fact, he doesn’t do dramatic at all, which makes Jaskier instantly concerned. He looks ahead, thinking Geralt’s spotted a bear, or some beast, but the road is clear.

His attention returns to Geralt as the man turns towards him. There’s pure, unadulterated, shock on his face when he says, “Pregnant?”

“Uhh,” Jaskier replies smartly. “You’re gonna have to use your big boy words for this one.”

“Jelena,” he says. He releases Roach’s reins and turns properly towards him. “The house smelled like pregnant omega. Your scent isn’t far off.”

Jaskier feels his heart quickening in such a sudden way, it hurts. Still, he tries to laugh it off.

“Then maybe we just have similar scents. Geralt for god’s sake you’re sterile, you said it yourself.”

“Her kid mistook you for her because you smelled similar. You smelled like a pregnant omega. She said _due date_ , Jaskier,” Geralt says and he sounds so serious, that there’s no space left for argument.

Jaskier breathes. Or tries to, anyway. The panic is visceral, and it isn’t just about the potential pregnancy. It drags onto his other panic, the panic he’s been kicking down ever since he got cursed into a giant hell bat, and this time there’s nothing to stop him from cracking.

“But-- but _how_?” he demands, feeling hysterical. “You’re sterile and I’ve just had one measily heat which was cut off early--”

Jaskier chokes. Of course. It makes sense. His heat was cut off because he got pregnant. Geralt was pumping him so full of come, he can’t even think _when_ it happened, but it seems it took that third day of the heat. And if he’s wrong, it’s not like he’s not had Geralt inside him since.

Geralt seems to be of the same thought as him, but there are no comforting words. He still looks shocked, shaken, a little lost, and stuck between fight and flight even as he’s standing frozen as if waiting to be hit.

“I don’t know,” he says, unhelpfully. “We become infertile due to the mutations. There were even tests done _with_ omegas. That’s how we know.”

“So if it isn’t you,” Jaskier says, knowing he’s shrieking without reason, “Then it’s me, right? The only fucking thing that changed is me turning into--into this monstrosity.”

Geralt’s face turns pained. Jaskier might have as well slapped him. He doesn’t understand it and in his panic, he doesn’t stop to question.

“Oh, fuck,” Jaskier says, feeling a sudden need to sit down. He does, just by the side of the road, trying to breathe. “Oh, fucking hell. Great. Wonderful. This is exactly what I needed right now on top of everything else.”

Geralt’s voice is carefully neutral when he says, “I didn’t know.”

“I know!” Jaskeir yells. “I know you didn’t know! You would’ve left me in that cave alone if there was even a _chance_ of this happening! I know well enough your opinion on children.”

And maybe that’s cruel, Jaskier thinks. No, he corrects, it’s just the truth. He is aware of Geralt’s opinions. Namely, they’re so strong that he’s ignoring the child _gifted_ to him. It’s been two years since Calanthe’s court, a year since the girl was born; Geralt should be there, looking after the fucking kid, not here doing--whatever the fuck he’s doing. Impregnating Jaskier.

“Breathe,” he hears and Jaskier remembers, oh right, he needs to do that. So he shuts his mouth and breathes, and let’s the panic and shock wash over him as he holds his head between his knees.

The unfortunate thing about negative thoughts is that they spiral, and drag up the things he’s been ignoring, namely the fact that he drinks Geralt’s blood on a semi-regular basis to sustain himself so he doesn’t snap and kill everyone, the fact that he’s turned katakan with no cure after four months, the fact that he’s in love with the one person he shouldn’t be and it’s not waning as he thought it would. Not to mention the fact that he knows for certain he’s going to ruin one good thing he has going on when it comes to friendships, but continues being foolish and entertaining futile fantasies anyway.

It takes him a long time until he can hear his own voice in his head. However, when he manages, he tells himself it will be alright. He’s made way bigger messes before. Technically, this isn’t even in the top ten most stupid things he’s done accidentally. Really, if they weren’t who they are, using protection when it comes to sex would’ve been fucking obvious.

He isn’t sure how long he sits there, he just knows that Geralt ties Roach off and leaves him alone. It’s rather considerate, all in all. Jaskier appreciates it. But it also means that, when Jaskier’s calmed down, Geralt isn’t there.

Now, Jaskier wouldn’t offend Geralt’s honor but it wouldn’t be the first time he ran off after learning he’s got a child on the way. Thankfully, he comes bursting out of the undergrowth about the time Jaskier decides to untie Roach to look for him.

He would appear unaffected if not for the way his eyes sweep over Jaskier and he stands like a deer stuck in the sights of a bow, arrow pointing right in the middle, waiting to be hit. Jaskier has seen this before. Geralt always gets like this when he expects to be hurt, physically or otherwise.

“I’ve calmed down,” Jaskier says, and while he still feels it roiling somewhere beneath the surface, he’s marginally more functional.

Geralt nods. “I’ve found a cave.”

He might as well sleep it off, Jaskier thinks, and follows Geralt through the forest.

#### -

When he wakes up, it’s dark. Geralt’s scent is astringent, which he recognizes as the cause of his rousing, and he finds the man at the mouth of the cave, seated with his blade across his shoulder, looking out. Whatever thoughts he’s been turning over in his mind mustn’t have been pleasant for them to manifest so strongly in his scent.

Jaskier hesitates touching him, unsure if it would be welcome now. Not only did he blow up at him--which he doesn’t necessarily regret since he couldn’t have stopped himself if he tried--he also gave him little space for retreat. He knows Geralt’s moral code enough that between the curse and the pregnancy, he’d feel like the worst scum of the earth if he left, even if that was something he wanted to do.

Jaskier sighs and lays a hand on his shoulder before sitting down next to him. Sometimes, overthinking is useless.

“What is it? You smell sour,” Jaskier says, “and if I can smell it, it means it is something.”

Geralt glances at him, his stiff shoulders unyielding under Jaskier’s hand. It’s a surprise when he lowers them, as if defeated both in body and in spirit.

“I’ve been thinking,” he starts.

“Never a good sign,” Jaskier jokes, and grins when Geralt’s eyes narrow. He watches Geralt huff, shake his head, and look away, but he appears marginally more comfortable than before.

“Thanks to our mutations, witchers don’t feel emotions. At least, not as intensely as humans. It makes it easier to ask to be paid despite whatever tragedy has deemed our employment necessary.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Jaskier says dryly.

Geralt’s mouth quirks up. “I thought, despite that, we were humans. But humans tend to be able to breed inside their species. You weren’t wrong back there--your change, and whatever mutagens they pumped into me during the trials seem to be compatible.”

“Ah, so your mutations make it possible to get creatures pregnant.”

“It’s my fault,” Geralt says, with such fervor, it surprises Jaskier.

He chuckles, and says, “Well, yes. But it’s also mine. It’s how sex usually works, Geralt.”

“You’re not taking this seriously.” He shakes his head and covers his face with his hands, takes a deep breath, and it’s a long time until he’s finished his exhale. When the last dregs leave his lungs, Geralt appears smaller, just like plums that shrivel up if left unpicked for too long. Finally, he says, “Well, at least now I know for certain that witchers are monsters.”

It’s so pitiful, so defeated that Jaskier wants to shake him awake, to slap some sense into him, to pinch him until he’s yelling at him to stop. Most of all, however, he wishes he could hold him and that it could ever be enough in helping Geralt deal with his lifelong self-loathing. The Geralt he met so long ago would have never shown his underbelly like this. That starting thought makes Jaskier realise just how close they’ve grown after all these years, and he’s at least close enough to be allowed to stay and watch Geralt patchwork of stitches which hold him together come undone. As if Geralt _trusts_ him enough to know it’s alright to do it when he’s there.  
  
Jaskier’s throat tightens with emotions, but he keeps himself aloof. At least one of them has to have a foot in the real, now, and reasonable. That honor doesn’t usually belong to Jaskier but needs must.

He clicks his tongue and knocks their shoulders together, as if he can’t see Geralt’s beliefs imploding next to him, and says, “For someone who argued so vehemently you aren’t human when Filanvadrel had us, I don’t see the issue. Not to mention that, if I remember correctly, you gave them all the coin you had on you. That ought to count for something.”

“Not being human and being a monster are two different things. Besides,” Geralt says, “I didn’t give them the money. I traded it for the lute.”

Jaskier halts, losing the track of his thought. He feels the flush on his face, decade-owned embarrassment finally catching up to him. “Oh. Then are you going to tell me that stint of reverse psychology--”

“I was serious. If it would’ve kept you alive, it seemed a good deal, my life for yours.”

Geralt has that fond look in his eyes when he glances up, and Jaskier feels so very weak for it. If it were just a week ago, he’d have kissed him. But a kiss cannot convey the heaviness of the emotions that lay on his breast, thick like molasses and stinging his eyes like the first shot of rum.

“It’s not. It isn’t. Your value is bigger than just that of your life. The world would’ve been made dim and small indeed, if you’d have died that day.” Jaskier clears his throat. If he gets emotional, he will lose track of his thoughts. “You must promise me Geralt, no matter if it’s mine or someone else’s life. You musn’t throw yours away. Your worth doesn’t begin and end with your abilities as a witcher.”

Knowing Geralt would fail to reply, Jaskier finally adds, “Frankly, witcher, human, other, does it even matter? You know as well as I that it isn’t _what_ you are, it’s what you _do_.”

Geralt holds his gaze for a long moment. Then his golden eyes narrow as he smiles, crow’s feet creasing as his mouth tugs up. “Damn,” he says, “You’re right. Thank you for reminding me.”

Jaskier shrugs, and for once in his life, feels bashful. But then, when has Geralt not been the cause of exceptions in his life?

Cold wind rushes past them, shaking the trees loose of any remaining, browning leaf, but the cave protects them against the chill of it. It’s been such a pleasant year, that Jaskier can’t comprehend it’s so close to ending. By now, if he didn’t get cursed, he’d be sitting in Oxenfurt going over lectures, or he’d be warming the bed of a count or a countess. Still, despite the turning weather, and the circumstances, Jaskier would rather be here than anywhere else.

Eventually, Geralt asks, “Did you think what you want to do now?”

“What do you think I should do?”

He watches something pass over Geralt’s face, some old pain, or perhaps hope but it’s only there and gone. “It’s your choice.”

Jaskier snorts, and feels a tickle of a laugh. “I know that well enough. Frankly, I panicked mostly because I kept thinking of the baby being katakan, and bursting out of me or something. What if shifting into katakan form harms it? What if breaking the curse hurts it? What if it hurts _me_?”

Geralt’s expression finally smooths out. He almost looks relieved. Jaskier squints. “Oh what, so eager to get rid of it? Fucking hell man.”

Geralt snorts. “No, I just thought you were more upset about me knocking you up than being cursed.”

“Look, you were doing a great job explaining everything, but the panic’s been accumulating, and well. I just paid off that tab in full.”

Geralt hums.

“So,” Jaskier says. “Thoughts, ideas, suggestions?”

“Witchers aren’t supposed to have children anyway. We don’t have packs,” he says in that careful voice, and now Jaskier has enough mental capacity to recognize it for what it is--a shield. Geralt’s face is cultured into a semblance of mild-nothingness which he calls Geralt’s mass-murderer face--to himself in his head, where Geralt can never ever hear him because Jaskier just knows it’d hurt him somehow--even as his scent is slowly mellowing into something that isn’t strong, but instead muted. Soft. Sad.

“Are you telling me what I want to hear or is this your actual opinion?” Jaskeir asks, narrowing his eyes.

“It’s a fact,” Geralt replies. “A child? Having these mutations to deal with from the start?” He shakes his head. His face shifts into something hurt, something so hurt it hurts Jaskier just to look at it. “You said it best. With our lifestyle, there’s no space for a pup. Unless you want to settle down. It’s your choice.”

Jaskier nods. He says, “Could we consult that sorceress about this too?”

“Would be best. Who knows if pregnancy messes with the curse.”

Jaskier nods. “So. A month and a half. Seems doable.”

“How far along do you think you are?”

“My heat stopped three days in. We were supposed to stay in that village so I could perform for Velen, remember?”

“Velen,” Geralt says, milling over it. Jaskier wishes he could know his thoughts now. But ultimately, all Geralt says is, “ Just two months. You’re not even showing. Yes, it’s doable.”

#### -

Jaskier would like to say that everything returns back to normal, but it doesn’t. There’s a tentative muteness to them afterwards, hounding them to go quicker. Geralt accepts Jaskier’s touches, but that’s all they remain--a brush of a hand here, an elbow there, and a hand on his shoulder.

In the silence of the road Jaskier has time to truly calm himself, and to come to terms with the fact that this is his new reality: pregnant with a two month old babe of a friend whom he loves, and who cares enough for him to help him, but not enough to touch him. He should have known that the heat would change where he and Geralt stood. That, or make it perfectly clear. After all, Jaskier stands where he has always stood--just left of the center, never an eyesore, but never eye-catching. He is, and remains, a friend.

Jaskier doesn’t contemplate over the hurt caused by nothing else but his own dim-wittedness, it’s his own fault for entertaining impossible ideas, and instead focuses on the future. Namely, the fact that he would be a terrible father. Jaskier has never had experience with children, especially not the small ones, and frankly, he remains terrified of childbirth. He has no home to go back to either. He’d never go back to Redania, not back to his family’s estate, especially not pregnant.

Even if he _were_ to keep it, he’d never want to subject the child to his family, to Redania’s customs, or homelessness. He has no money to his name, and he would not be able to work in late pregnancy, or while the child is small. He could not be able to provide everything needed for having a child to begin with, and that’s just the technical things. He doesn’t want to think about the complications of being cursed, and being a katakan.

Furthermore, he knows how it is for someone to have a child. He has been made aware of the time his mother lost on raising him on innumerable occasions, time she would have rather spent furthering her career in court. He knows his own career as a bard would stop. He’s made a name for himself, after all. He still has aspirations and hopes. All of that would have to be halted for the child.

It would be best then, he decides, that he should give it up. Not even taking Geralt into account, Jaskier knows he isn’t ready to be a father. Geralt himself is skirting that honor. Jaskier cannot expect him to stick around. He is on The Path, and his opinion has been made clear. Witchers aren’t supposed to have packs.

Jaskier considers this until deep into the dawn until it’s morning, sun pouring over them in patches, the overhanging trees over the dirt road that would have provided shade during spring, now just reminders of the time lost. The chill in the air is growing worse. The winter rains will start soon, and with them hail and snow.

They make camp when the noon hits and nausea follows. Jaskier sits, plucking at his lute. He cannot calm his fingers, too much nervous energy in him, so all he has left to do is play. Yet he has no patience for ballads, and no joy for quick songs so even his lute fails to calm him.

Eventually, his fingers decide to make a melody he recognizes only later, something he was taught in Oxenfurt, a very long time ago. It’s a somber strange melody. His profesor at the time said it was the oldest melody known to man and elf alike. He remembers trying to play it, but sounded disjointed and disharmonious. Perhaps it matters more what he’s playing it on. Filavandrel’s lute is, after all, and remains, the most enduring, beautiful instrument he has ever held, making any melody good. He comments on it, trying to gage Geralt’s mood.

“And yet the song speaks of the old days,” Geralt replies. “Of when all things were given their place.”

“So you know it.” Jaskier thinks of the lyrics now, but somehow finds no will in himself to sing.

His heart is heavy even when he looks away from Geralt’s profile. He’s hidden himself again behind his masks of indifference, though he’s gentle with Jaskier, though perhaps he thinks Jaskier doesn’t notice.

It’s such a beautiful day, one of the last few remaining before true winter comes, and yet the only thing that keeps returning to him is that sentence of Geralt’s. Witchers aren’t supposed to have packs. It troubles him. Above all, it makes him feel guilty.

His hands halt and the music stops with them. Geralt looks at him, and Jaskier knows he must ask. “Geralt,” he says, “Will you loathe me for my choice?”

Geralt takes a breath, and it sounds like it hurts him, like he got kicked in the gut. Yet, he looks him in the eye and says, “No, Jaskier. I could never loathe you for that, or anything else.”

Jaskier feels too close to crying both from relief and nerves. He sighs and puts his head in his hands. That’s settled then.

#### -

They sleep, then they’re back on the road. Now that he’s made his decision, Jaskier feels more at ease at entertaining other possibilities. It’s difficult not to. He’s spent enough time in court to know that women and omegas tend to think of unwanted pregnancies like accidents, not like children. He knows even thinking about it is making him grow attached.

But Jaskier has never had much control over his thoughts or imagination. It’s difficult not to think about what the child would look like, who they’d be like. It’s difficult not to think about how he’d look with a swollen belly. He wondered if it would be so awful after all, to give birth, and hold a child. Jelena’s kid was nice enough.

Jaskier understands who he is. His freedom, to him, is paramount. Yet he imagines a world in which his affections are returned, and in which Geralt would not flee in the face of the responsibility of being a father, in which it would be safe to love him, to stay in one place, because he isn’t the only one attached. It’s especially difficult not to think of this when Geralt is there to tell him to go to sleep, the Geralt who cares and who’s the only person in his life not to turn him away when he’s not alright. Geralt, whose touch lingers, as if he wishes to prolong it even though he pulls away first. Geralt who is there when Jaskier wakes up covered in sweat and chased by nightmare to the world of waking, and who, when Jaskier whines, comforts him, even though it must be killing him.  
  
And yet, there Jaskier is, being held in Geralt’s arms, trying to calm his breath. Jaskier feels like his days oscillate between being perfectly fine and absolutely losing it in moments, before he can put himself together again.

He feels raw around the edges, like whatever choice he makes will be a giant mistake. The fact is that he cannot do this alone.

“Geralt,” he says, after he’s managed to make his throat work, “Would you _want_ a pack?”

Geralt stiffens, freezes, but he doesn’t leave. Instead, it’s that gutted voice of his that says, “Don’t.”  
  
Jaskier remembers that voice from the heat, when, Jaskier realises, things just got too close to being honest and real.

Geralt takes him by the shoulders and pushes him away to look at him. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“I know,” Jaskier replies, curling his hands around Geralt’s wrist, hoping this will hold him still. “I know what the smart thing to do is. But it would be an injustice, not to consider everything.”

“You already made the decision,” Geralt says, “why make it difficult?”

“Because,” Jaskier says. “Because it is my child, and your child, and it’s not supposed to exist. But against all odds, it does. And if I know anything of this world it’s that it behaves with strange rules.”

“ _Are_ you saying it’s destiny?” Geralt asks, and sounds angry. “Inevitable? Meant to be? It’s an accident, Jaskier.”

“Why can’t it be both?” Jaskier asks, and he watches Geralt grimace, and tear his hands away, standing up. He walks away a few paces, and stands, breathing harshly, with a hand covering his face.

It makes Jaskier realise one thing -- someone who doesn’t want something would never have such a strong reaction to the possibility of having it.  
  
“You do, don’t you? Want a pack,” Jaskier says quietly.

Geralt’s shoulders are bent in defeat. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. He can’t seem to force himself to just say yes. “I can’t have something that’s not meant for me.”

“Geralt,” Jaskier says, “It doesn’t matter what is meant or not, it matters what you wish to take. You told me it’s my choice whether to keep it or not, but to keep it I cannot do this alone.”

Jaskier gets up and, anxious, starts fiddling with the bedroll and blankets until they’re all folded up, and they’re ready to leave. In the end all he can say is, “Think on it.”

#### -

They hit Daevon after a fortnight on the road, just in time for the first light of dawn. It’s the last stop before Ard Carraigh, and a good place to earn some coin. The weather that has been growing ever colder finally took a turn for the worse a week back, and the northern winds that have made the trees bare, now accompany bursts of chilly rain. Samhain was always miserable, and Jaskier doesn’t look forward to Yule considering how bad it started.

They walk into the city half frozen, and shack up in an inn that doesn’t ask questions, is constantly burning the furnace, and has baths. Jaskier thinks that instead of buying a doublet he should have bought a winter cloak. Alas, it’s too late now. He will have to work for it while in Daevon. It’s not the first time Jaskier has to mediate consequences of his choices, and it won’t be the last. Even with this pregnancy, he ought to clean up his own mess, and continue his life, if only a little wiser. Geralt hasn’t given him any answer, and Jaskier doubts any will arrive, even during the two weeks that separate them from the capitol.

Jaskier lays to sleep while Geralt washes up, and doesn’t hear him leave. However, he isn’t there when Jaskier rouses with the first orange light of dusk, and so Jaskier proceeds to take his time bathing. The inn staff isn’t particularly caring, but Jaskier chucks that up to the fact that in big towns their doors are constantly revolving, so there is generally less care about comings and goings of their clientele. At least Jaskier is sure they’ll appreciate his put-together appearance when he starts entertaining the night’s crowd.

Geralt comes back to the room while Jaskier’s still in the bath. His nose scrunches up, but Jaskier can’t do anything about the lye soap.

“You should get dressed,” he says, standing ways off, by the door. “There’s a rumor a sorceress is in town. Spells for coin.”

“Of which we have very little,” Jaskier reminds him.

“I can offer my services, and you can yours too.”

Jaskier’s worry spikes, before he breathes out. He isn’t ready to make this decision now. Ard Carraigh is still two weeks away from them. He thought he had that time. However, he knows Geralt’s voice when he’s made up his mind about something.

“I thought we were waiting for Ard Carraigh,” he voices anyway.

“You said it best,” Geralt replies, looking away when Jaskier stands. “We don’t know what sort of payment a king’s advisor and sorceress will ask. But someone who does favours for small folk? We might stand a chance at bargaining.”

Jaskier steps out of the bath and pats himself dry. He knows his anxiety best, and so he sighs, and says in jest, “Pragmatic, as ever.”

He doesn’t think the joke lands for either of them.

If Jaskier wasn’t showing before, he is now. It’s a little swell, just barely there, a little pouch as if he ate too much. Over the passing days, he’s grown a little attached to that pouch. Jaskier tries not to think too much about it even as he passes a hand over it while getting dressed.

Geralt locks the inn room behind them and on the street, guides him through underpasses, alleys, and streets until they reach a queue. Jaskier finds it bizzare. At least the turnabout is shockingly quick. They’re at the doors in about an hour, and when they walk in, it’s a little tavern, closed for business until later in the day.

The scent in the air makes Jaskier all warm, and he knows it’s magic. The candles are sparsely lit, and it would be difficult to see for anyone else but them. Yet, even in the darkness, among the chairs, stools, and tables, Jaskier easily notices black figure tucked into a comfortable corner, wrapped in furs.

“Next,” says a woman’s voice, sounding bored and tetchy.

Geralt has that look on his face like he’s staring down a striga or a lynch mob, both of which Jaskier was privy to see, before his soft step leads him towards the sorceress. Jaskier follows. There is nothing else left to do.

“A witcher,” the woman says in a half-mocking half-surprised tone. Her gown is black and white, matching her raven hair. She’s beautiful. Yet the harmony of her face is disturbed by her lilac eyes, shockingly bright, like it’s magic making them so vibrant. When they turn to Jaskier, he feels struck dumb by them. She adds, “And a beast.”

“Jaskier, actually,” he comments. “I’ve been cursed into being a katakan.”

Her eyebrows tick up, as if to say he’s struck her interest.

“Huh,” she says. Her lips are full but bare, the color of peacock’s feathers decorating her eyelids. “Yennefer de Vengerberg. Now, sit and speak. I’m not usually in the business of cleaning up witcher’s messes. This curse too difficult to break?”

Jaskier does take a seat because it’s polite, and then Geralt sits too, as if grudgingly. He’s on his guard, Jaskier notices. Despite this wariness, Geralt explains in quick, simple sentences what happened in Lord Langley’s estate, the curse’s evolution, and the ring.

“Interesting,” she says. “So you’ve managed to turn into a katakan without accident?”

“I can’t control it, exactly. But sometimes I can just feel it coming. That’s usually around the time I start ripping my clothes off frantically so I don’t destroy them.”

She looks at his clothes then, with judgment. “I take it there’s been a fatality already.”

“A beautiful redanian doublet,” Jaskier jokes.

She looks sceptical about it. However, she says, “I will need to see the ring.”

Jaskier sighs. The idea of taking it off upsets him greatly, so all he can do is thrust his hand towards Geralt, who doesn’t hesitate about ripping it off his finger, and handing it over to the sorceress.

She has an amused expression on her face when Jaskier looks back at her, even though she’s examining the ring. “So it stands that katakans are partial towards gold.”

She turns the ring in her hand. There’s intent on her face, as if she’s doing something that the two of them can’t see. Finally, she asks, “Witcher, if your friend here was a true higher vampire katakan, wouldn’t magic have stopped him from ruined clothes?”

“True katakans will their human shape to change, so they can even conjure clothes, but that’s advanced magic. Jaskier’s just matured, and there’s no one to teach him such tricks. If the curse allows for that at all.”

“Interesting how the ring has remained intact. I believe it might have belonged to the original katakan. I will have to do research on the topic, but I don’t see a reason why the curse couldn’t be broken.”

Jaskier is relieved but Geralt is still stiff beside him, his jaw clenched so hard that Jaskier thinks he might shatter his teeth.

Jaskier bites the proverbial pepper, and says, “There’s more.”

“Well get to it then,” the sorceress says. “I don’t charge by the hour, but I’m going to start.”

“I’m pregnant,” he says.

She blinks at him. “I can tell. Lifting the curse won’t have anything to do with it, if you’re worried about that.”

“Ah, no, well,” Jaskier winces. “See the thing is--”

“The child’s mine,” Geralt interrupts. Yennefer’s violet eyes turn towards him. She looks baffled, which is frankly the correct reaction to such news.

“It seems,” Geralt says in that neutral voice of his that he uses only when hiding what he truly feels, “that witchers are sterile except when it comes to in-heat, katakan omegas.”

Unexpectedly, Yennefer starts laughing. It’s a real cackle that one, seemingly ridiculing Geralt more than the situation.

“Oh you-- amaze me,” she says, as if they’re such fools she can’t help being amused. “Alright, I’ll take your case. I’ll look into it, but if it’s a regular curse breaking, then it’s the regular fee.”

“And what is a regular fee for Yennefer de Vergeberg?”

She smirks. She isn’t very nice, Jaskier thinks. Somehow, he can’t help liking her anyway.

“Coin is easy enough to come by,” she says. “But a witcher? No, I will need you for a task. In due time.”

“Of course,” Geralt replies.

Her violet eyes turn towards Jaskier. “Meet me here tomorrow. And congratulations on being the least lucky omega I have had the displeasure of meeting.”

Jaskier sighs. “Likewise, I guess.”

#### -

How Yennefer manages to research something just within the day is amazing to Jaskier. However, the awe is gone when he finds himself back in that tavern again the next night-- Yennefer’s smirk is gone. She just looks impatient. Then again, she was impatient yesterday too.

“Have you decided whether you want to keep the child?” she asks.

“What?”

“The child,” she says, tetchy. “Are you keeping it or not?”

Jaskier isn’t prepared for such a decision, or in fact, to be questioned about it at all, and he has no reply.

“What does it matter?” Geralt asks in his stead.

“If I lift the curse,” Yennefer says, “dear old bard here will not be katakan anymore. Ergo, he won’t have whatever mutation has allowed him to get pregnant to begin with. Ergo, his body will reject the baby. Ergo he will have a miscarriage.”

Jaskier feels shaken. He never even considered that.

“If I don’t lift the curse, however, there’s no way of knowing what the offspring will be like. A mutant, true, but the good kind or the bad kind? Is there going to be an issue with genes like there is with humans breeding with elves?” She shrugs one imperial shoulder and continues, “You don’t know if it’s going to be a regular pregnancy either. There is always a risk of premature birth with such things.”

“The issue,” Jaskier says, “Isn’t about carrying it to term. The issue is in giving birth, exactly for those reasons, and then rearing it. I’m a travelling bard, after all.”

Yennefer sighs. “What, don’t witchers have their castled schools to go back to or has your witcher just not invited you?”

It’s a low blow, for both, but it seems it’s more meant for Geralt. Jaskier doesn’t understand animosity between the two of them, though he is sure it has something to do with their professions. Geralt says nothing, as he is wont to do when taunted, and instead just glares.

“Either way,” she says, “if you’re not opposed to carrying it to term, I could be convinced to see you through the pregnancy.”

“At what price?” Geralt asks, voice hard, pointed, a speartip impaling center mass.

“I’d take what’s not wanted. I’d take the child.”

“Didn’t you just say--”

“Yes, yes, but this is the first child born of a witcher in history. Call it professional curiosity.”

“If you think,” Geralt says, a growl in his voice, “that I am letting any mage take _my_ child as _payment_ for services provided, as if it’s a _thing_ , a bargaining chip, you’re mistaken.”

“Don’t be obtuse. Witchers have been collecting such children themselves for centuries. Or are you going to tell me you became what you are willingly?”

She’s smug about her point again. Indeed, Yennefer de Vengerberg is far from nice, and whatever fondness Jaskier had for her leaves him. It’s one thing to be amused. Another to attack Geralt, fishing to see where it hurts most.

At least, he doesn’t give up his reaction, and seeing that, she lifts her eyebrows, and says in a reasonable tone of voice that now grates, “Where are you going to raise it then?”

“Kaer Morhen,” Geralt says, and Jaskier’s heart flutters. “It’s seen enough children before, has rooms, and protection. It’s not an issue of space or location.”

“Kaer Morhen is no place for anyone to live, let alone a child. It’s a ruin. In any case, you heard him,” she gestures towards Jaskier. “The issue is childbirth. Will you have coin to employ a healer to stay with you for the last month and through childbirth? Could a regular one handle it?”

She could have stopped there but she doesn’t. She seems to have decided to make every necessary point, saying, “What if the child isn’t normal when it comes out? Have you considered the possibility that dear bard over here might need to be shifted to give birth at all? No regular person, unused to the monsters you face, would ever agree to stay.”

The silence is telling. Yet, he sees the way Geralt’s hands have turned into fists, the way anger oozes out of him like thick film covering Jaskier’s senses. “He’s just in his third month now,” Geralt says through a throat of broken glass. “If it ever came to it, we’d find a way.”

Whatever Geralt has said before, however much he tried to conceal his true feelings, Jaskier sees that he is invested in the idea of this child, of his, _their_ , child. He’s so protective over it in fact that he’d even bare his teeth at a sorceress. And yet, he’s also attentive enough to keep track of the days since they’ve discovered the pregnancy. Jaskier knows, then and there, that whatever hopes he’s had of letting his love for Geralt wane is lost. He will forever be enchanted by this strong-headed, idiot of a man.

Yennefer harrumphs, as if the idea of it is ludicrous to even consider. She turns to Jaskier instead.

“It’s your choice, really. I can perform the breaking spell, and you can have a very painful miscarriage, both physcially and emotionally. You can carry to term, and I deal with the curse then, and put you back in order with a little spell, or,” she says, “you can take your chances with a group of emotionless witchers, and hope the baby won’t tear out of you.”

He knows he’s put on the spot. He feels Geralt’s gaze, hard, as if he’s preparing himself for the obvious decision. He also sees Yennefer’s grin--as if she assumes she’s already won. Jaskier, naturally, chooses the third option. He gathers all of his manners, and stands.

“Madam, you have been incredibly helpful. I thank you for your advice and services provided, but I won’t be selling my unborn child to you. I’ll be keeping it.” He hears Geralt’s breath catch, and he can smell his scent changing, even as Jaskier’s shoving him so he stands too. “I’ll take my chances at Kaer Morhen.”

Yennefer's face falls, something tight around her eyes turning suspicious. She looks between them, but her scent betrays very little -- so covered up with magic, Jaskier can’t even tell she’s angry outside of her obvious behaviour.

“If that’s what you really want,” she says, though she sounds sceptical about it. She swirls a hand in the air, and a ghost of purple magic washes over it, as she conjures up what looks like an black crystal shaped like a bird skull. She presses it into the palm of Jaskier’s hand and says, “If you do change your mind give me a call.”

Jaskier looks at the item and pockets it. Then he turns to Geralt and says, “Come on, we better get back to the inn.”

They leave as they went in, quickly and with little hesitation. Deep night has fallen outside, torches lit, yet Jaskier has little time to admire it. Geralt grabs him by his arms, pushes him against a wall of the tavern--in an alleyway between two houses--and holds him as if he wants to shake him.

He looks wounded, hurt, his voice raw when he says, “Jaskier, do you even realise--”

“I do,” Jaskier replies.

Geralt growls. “No, no you don’t. What you’ve chosen--”

“Is what I want to do. Geralt, think about it. In Kaer Morhen, I’ll have people helping me. You’ll be there too, but you won’t feel obligated to stay, if you don’t want to.”

Geralt’s expression shatters, anger leaving to reveal fear and hurt and need. His shoulders hunch, as if he’s trying to weather out his emotions but can’t help feeling everything all at once.

“I want to.” he says, quiet. “Fuck, I want to.”

He leans down to place his forehead on Jaskier’s shoulder and Jaskier chuckles, liberating his hands to wrap them around Geralt. “You could have just said so when I asked,” Jaskier says.

“No, you don’t owe me anything. And I-- I couldn’t even consider it.”

“Voicing an opinion doesn’t mean you’re imposing it,” Jaskier says, tone easy, though his heart squeezes, knowing that Geralt was afraid of even thinking about it, hoping for it, in case he was disappointed and it was taken away. “If you’ll be there with me then it can be done. With you I’m not afraid.”

Geralt breathes against his neck, shivering, and holds onto Jaskier as if a strong wind might blow him away. And then, slowly, he starts piecing himself back together, inch by inch, until he lifts his head up to lean their foreheads together.

Jaskier’s breath stutters in his lungs, and he feels all aflush, yet impossibly comfortable having Geralt’s hands on his back, holding him close, as much as he’s holding Geralt. He brushes their cheeks together, scenting him. And Jaskier sighs, feeling something inside him calm. Pleased, he encourages Geralt until he’s right there, pressing himself along Jaskier’s front, holding him so close Jaskier has to look over his shoulder at the indigo sky, and the winking stars.

“To Kaer Morhen then,” Geralt says, voice still raw. Jaskier hums, and lets them linger.


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter edited by the wonderful  
> [ghostalservice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plantainleaf/pseuds/clotpoleofthelord)  
>   
> Since I was unsure if everyone was aware that the calendar in Witcher is different to ours, I would also suggest you guys checking out this  
> [picture](https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Elven_calendar?file=Elven_Wheel_of_the_Year_by_SMiki55.png)  
> which explains it all.

Tucked in the corner of the Kaedwini mountains, hidden in a valley only accessible if you know the Witcher’s paths, Kaer Morhen looms now, ever more like the promised, yet unattainable, goal before them. They arrive in Ard Carraigh a few days early. The city isn’t unlike its cousins in Redania except for Oxenfurt and Novigrad, though it would be difficult to compare any city to the two crown jewels--none quite have the same reach.

However, the houses in Ard Carraigh are still tall and narrow, each sharing the neighbouring wall to create entire blocks laid out in neat rows, connected by large paved streets that thin out, running through the rest of the city like capillaries. They connect the less fortunate neighbourhoods, the town squares, and the open markets. It’s Yule already, and even the walls of the city do not protect it from the first winter snows that grace its porch, blown forth by wind.

The days, in spite of the dropping temperatures are clear, cool winter sun refusing to hide behind the clouds, yet mild enough that even Jaskier dares go out during the afternoon.

It’s been a bountiful year, Jaskier sees, as he walks through the market. The stalls are filled with fruits of their labor--sacks of grain: wheat, barley, buckwheat, some of which were pre-ground into flour, lentils, barley and rice. On stands Jaskier sees apples of all varieties, their red and yellow skins accompanying the clementines, oranges and lemons. Succulent pears perfume the streets, round persimmons, like candy treats, shining a uniform orange. The yellow flows back to red with large pomegranates, the last of their season, cut in half to show their quality. The more expensive stalls are those of nuts: walnuts, hazelnuts, and chestnuts, dried or raw, depending on the use.

They should not have come to the city, should have instead skirted it and followed the river Gwenllech north-east. But Geralt, who knows the region well, offered it as a rest stop on account of there only being two villages on their way before a long stretch of wilderness takes them to Kaer Morhen.

Jaskier didn’t complain. Indeed, he couldn’t help feeling entirely happy about being in the city. It is, after all, his natural habitat. He’s a bard and a poet, and he has spent enough time on the road to pluck his strings and come up with a few entertaining jigs that, in places such as Ard Carragh, are appreciated. Travellers, diplomats, refugees, all come to Ard Carraigh, bringing with them knowledge of the outside, and a certain flavor to the city that villages, usually isolated as they are, simply don’t have.

That is to say--coin is good. Coin is, in fact, more than good. Jaskier finds his coin-purse fat and heavy, and for once, he doesn’t have anything to spend it on. He has no food he needs to buy as they’ll be staying at least a week more before setting off, meaning provisions aren’t necessary yet. The room in the inn is paid for because he plays there, and Geralt seems to have disappeared somewhere, coming back after two, three days, staying only to sleep and leaving again.

Jaskier assumes it’s a contract. Or multiple, which is rare as it is so he doesn’t comment and doesn’t complain. Not that he would have anyone to complain to considering the situation.

The reason Jaskier finds himself in the market to begin with is his realisation, having seen Geralt’s old shirt in his pack, that his belly will be getting bigger. That means that he probably won’t be fitting in his pants very soon, and that his shirt will be absolutely ruined. It would be difficult to acquire specific clothes just for pregnancy, but in a city, there are enough of the populus who can give birth that tailors should, at least, cater to the need.

Jaskier has a certain taste, true enough, but he’s also smart. The waistband of his current pants can be adjusted and let out but only up to a point. He isn’t sure how big he’ll be getting, so he cannot count on it. Not to mention that the undershirt Geralt bought him is large, and it will serve him well, but that he has the same issue with it. Not to mention the fact that his doublet will absolutely be redundant soon, and that he still needs a heavy winter cloak.

This is a specific occasion so he needs the clothes for, he assumes, the last three months of his pregnancy. Which means, in fact, that he needs at least one winter cloak, one large shirt, one large pants, and if not a doublet, then something thick and comfortable with which to replace it. All of which, he knows, he will have to pay an arm and a leg for. Fabric is expensive, even here in Kaedwen, and Jaskier is glad that business has been doing well.

However, before he descends upon the merchants, Jaskier visits the vendors and garners himself two pomegranates. Perhaps Jaskier doesn’t get anything from eating normal food, but it still tastes good and, furthermore, he has another person with him now. Geralt can get his own food, true, but he doesn’t like to treat himself nicely. Jaskier wishes he’d let him.

He thinks of the way Geralt stilled when Jaskier kissed him after their visit with Yennefer, the way his expression shuddered, the way he sighed, put his hands on Jaskier’s hips and pulled him away. He thinks of the way he’d rolled into Geralt’s back, two days prior, when the man popped in to sleep, the way Geralt woke up and left the bed. He thinks of the way he hasn’t caught Geralt sleeping again. He knows Geralt visited only by the freshness of his scent, and he wonders what happened between Daevon and Ard Carraigh.

He doesn’t understand exactly what Geralt would be broody over--perhaps he doesn’t like going back to Kaer Morhen. He’s certainly not been back there even though he’d told Jaskier, at one point a few years back, that other Witchers usually coalesce there during winter. Which is just as well, Jaskier thinks, considering he’s three or so months along now and that he’s looking at early summer as the due date.

Or, Jaskier considers as he goes to the tailors with their open shops, perhaps the issue isn’t the location as it is the company. Geralt hasn’t talked a lot about his fellow witchers, usually by accident, but Jaskier has rather gotten the feeling that they are somewhat of a loosely-bound family. Vesemir, of whom he knows the most, seems like a sort of an adoptive father to Geralt. But Jaskier’s mind works ten miles a pace, and so he can’t help thinking of different rivalries, all getting progressively better, or worse depending on who you ask, as he tries choosing his undershirts. They’re all very large, but at least they can be tailored later to fit. It’s the pants that prove to be a problem. Namely, they’re all horrendous.

Jaskier contends with the materials, and with his stupid ideas until, inevitably, he moves to another tailor, and ends up going from one shop to another, looking for something appropriate. Jaskier likes to look good. He also likes to be distracted. His matra of ignoring the problem until it goes away usually works--the more his eyes get caught on golden embroidery, rings and bracelets he knows he can’t afford, the less he thinks of personal issues.

Yet, he can’t stop thinking about Geralt pulling away from him and comparing it to before, when at least they were having sex and Geralt just refused to linger. He wonders now if he took two steps forward just to walk three back. Geralt’s attention was only ever physical, after all. Now, with Jaskier changing, it has waned.

It definitely could be so. The worst part is that Jaskier doesn’t know how to differentiate his feelings anymore. They’re all a blur, and it’s difficult to draw a line between friend and lover. He doesn’t know if either applies for their particular situation, but just like Jaskier didn’t owe Geralt anything, Geralt in turn doesn’t owe him anything. They will co-parent, at worst. At best, Jaskier will learn to deal with this love of his, because, whether Geralt loves him back or not, they are going to be family now. A pack.

#### -

When he’s done picking out clothes, he folds them in his rucksack. It’s still early in the day, so he pops out again, and decides to go look for a healer. He doesn’t know anything about pregnancy and he ought to learn.

Thankfully, like in all big cities, there are clinics. They’re usually for injured and deathly ill, but there’s always a corner for omegas and otherwise pregnant people. The issue, as always, when you have little coin and a big problem, is that there are waiting lists. He gets a slip, a number, and is told, “Come back in two days.”

“Tough luck today, innit?” the woman next to his says, who gets the same slip.

“Unfortunately,” Jaskier replies.

“At this point,” she says, “someone might as well start a club for pregnant people so they don’t have to keep giving everyone the same trite story. Pregnancy is _wonderful_ and _magical_.”

She snorts, in that way that says it’s all trite, and that she knows better.

“To be quite honest, I’m here mostly for information,” Jaskier says. They step out of the line to let other people through.

“Oh. Well, I was only half-way joking about the club. We usually talk crap while the kids play, but you’re welcome to it.”

“Oh _madam_ , I’m much obliged,” Jaskier smiles, flashing his best smile.

The woman snorts. “Madam? Now that’s a first. I’m Milva.”

“Jaskier,” he says, half bowing.

“Eh god,” she says, “you’re one of those aren’t you? A dandy.”

“Only a little,” Jaskier chuckles. She measures him up then shrugs.

“So, Jaskier, new in town?” she asks, as they fall into step together as they pass shopfronts.

“Passing through, actually. I’m a bard.”

“Ho,” she says, nodding her head. “Brave of you. I take it you’ve not started swelling up yet.”

“I got pregnant on Velen, and we’re just halfway through Yule, so I’m barely showing.”

“Vanya, omega like you, was like that too. His stomach started swelling around the start of the third month, and then kept going.”

Jaskier chuckles. “Can’t quite imagine it being bigger than--well--this.”

“Oh so a first pregnancy? Tough luck, friend.”

They pass through a few streets, tunnels, and end up in what, Jaskier can only call a yard. Tucked between two large houses, the little green left in the city is preserved there in evergreen bushes that cradle a large circular stone table, surrounded with stools and benches afixed with pillows, upon which Jaskier sees three women, and a man.

At first he doesn’t notice the children, but they’re never quiet. He hears them, loud and clear, playing in the underbrush.

“You’re back early,” he hears one of the women say. She looks from Milva to him and nods in greeting.

“Had no luck. Two day waiting period,” Milva says, waving the slip. “But managed to pick up a first-timer.”

Two of the women who are heavily pregnant, smell of a beta and omega. The third one with the small belly is a beta as well, while the man is an omega.

“This here is Vanya I told you about,” she gestures towards the man, who, for all intents and purposes, looks so unlike the ideal omega, that Jaskier would have a hard time appraising _what_ he is just from his appearance alone. He looks more like a Novigrad dockhand than a pregnant man.

Milva gestures towards the other three and says, “And these are Irma, Callis, and Dunya.”

“Jaskier,” he tells them and inclines his head, “Bard, at your service.”

Milva sits next to Vanya on a bench, which liberates the last one for Jaskier. He sits and slips the lute from his back. He doesn’t trust to leave it anywhere after that inn incident.

“Coffee, Jaskier?” Dunya asks. He sees the set-up in front of her so he says, “Please.”

He doesn’t often drink coffee. It is, in fact, pretty much a luxury that he’s never gotten a taste for. But the way Dunya makes it, he thinks as he sips the hot drink, is pretty damn good.

Jaskier never feels awkward in company, even in these first moments because usually proprietary doesn’t allow for it. He’s offered baked goods that litter the table, fruit, and Jaskier offers something of his in return--a song. From there it’s easy.

Eventually, Milva says, “Found him in front of the clinic, first pregnancy and all, looking for help.”

With Geralt’s insistent absence and Jaskier’s insistence at using hygienic products, Jaskier knows Geralt’s scent on his skin has mellowed, so Jaskier can barely pick it out anymore. It annoys him. He isn’t sure if it’s an omega thing, or pregnancy thing, or both, or in fact none. He knows, at least, that now that they smell him, they only smell an omega who’s pregnant. He knows what sort of assumptions people make just according to scent.

“Word of advice,” Irma says, “start keeping track of it in weeks rather than months. Much less confusion.”

Jaskier does the count quickly, and he says, “Then I’d be around sixteen weeks.”

She laughs. “Good time to get around to it, then. What do you want to know?”

“Everything. I’ve not been around pregnant people a lot, and certainly not there for birth. I’m pretty much terrified of it.”

“Oh honey,” Dunya mutters, eyes sympathetic.

“It’s sort of different for everyone,” Irma says. “I started having strange food cravings. My feet started swelling, and the last month, I could barely stand up. But the birth was pretty much ideal.”

Callis, next to her nods. “I remember you telling us--you spent longer deciding which sheets to ruin than the childbirth.”

“Yeah, Vinko just popped out.”

“Which,” Callis says, stopping seemingly just to make a point, “for a beta is unheard of.”

Dunya agrees, loudly. “My last pregnancy was awful. I was laying there, in pain, for two days.”

“And nobody prepares you for afterbirth,” Callis interjects.

They all agree and then proceed, both to Jaskier’s dismay and relief, to explain in perfect detail what it entails. Now, he’s seen people and monsters alike being gutted, cut, chopped, burnt, poisoned, and was perfectly unaffected. Yet, their words make his stomach flip.

“I couldn’t sit at all,” Dunya continues, “just kept laying like a dead fish. Couldn’t stand for long either.”

“You’re terrifying the lad,” Vanya interjects, and Milva looks at him, and proceeds to cackle.

“Look,” the man says, in a voice that entails a certain amount of secrecy and trustworthiness. “I got swelling of the feet and hands too, that’s unavoidable. And you’re puny, no offence. You’re going to get fat.”

“What?” Jaskier croaks. His belly swelling is one thing. Him getting _fat_ is quite another. Turning into a katakan has been stressful enough when it comes to physical changes.

“Dandy,” Milva laughs. “Of course that’s your protest.”

“You’ll get fat,” Vanya repeats, “because the baby needs it. I didn’t have any cravings, but maybe you will. Maybe you’ll not want to eat some food. Either way, pregnancy is the easy part. I was on my feet the last month as well. Unless you’re carrying twins, you’ll be too.”

Jaskier feels something stuck in his throat. “Uh,” he says, “I sure hope not.”

“Well,” Milva says, “for us omega women, twins and triplets are pretty much the norm.”

Vanya sighs, longsuffering. “You’re probably not going to have twins but you’ll know for certain in the clinic. They have mages--they’ll check you over. As for the birth, it’s just a few hours. The midwife checks you over, sees if you’ve dilated enough. If you are it should go easy, if you’re not open enough, then they have to cut the baby out.”

“Oh gods with my luck--”

“Don’t worry, it’s a regular procedure,” Milva says. “Most people survive it. With good surgeons.”

“You’ve got to be ready though,” Irma adds. “You can’t heal and take care of the baby on your own. If I were you, I’d stick around here. Find a place to settle. Enough walking should, apparently, make the baby come sooner.”

“I sure hope not,” Jaskier chuckles. He points to the north and says, “Since I intend to walk about three months that-a-ways.”

A pained silence befalls his company and Jaskier knows he’s somehow put his foot in his mouth.

Irma’s voice is gentle when she says, “Perhaps you really ought to stay here, hon. The people in the clinic help, that’s why there’s a waiting list.”

Dunya nods. “I was there for five days, healing, and they took care of the baby and everything.”

“And you don’t have a mate right?” Caliss says. “You really ought to stay.”

Dunya looks at Caliss who says, “What?”

The elephant in the room, Jaskier thinks. People tend to be polite like that, skirting around the topic. It isn’t unheard of for unmated people to be pregnant, though in polite society like the one amongst which he sits, it’s not considered favorable. In fact, it’s either looked at with scorn or pity. Jaskier wishes for neither.

“We’re not bonded, but we’ll be co-parenting,” Jaskier says succinctly, not wishing to add detail to the matter any further.

“Well,” Vanya says, “If you worked it out, good for you.”

Jaskier smiles. With that out of the way the air clears, and Jaskier ends up spending a lovely afternoon with his new friends laughing, swapping stories, and playing a jig or two. But as all gatherings, this one must end too, and Jaskier picks up his lute, and says goodbye. Vanya decides to walk him halfway.

Near the city stables, where every traveler leaves their horse since none are allowed inside, Vanya says, “You’re a nice guy, and I don’t want to assume. But if you decide you aren’t fit to be pregnant anyway, go to Zelka in the infirmary at the clinic. She’ll help.”

“Thank you,” Jaskier says, knowing that there is nothing else he can say.

Vanya goes his own separate way and Jaskier continues forth, down the street, before he feels eyes on him. It’s an interesting feeling, knowing you’re watched. But whether it’s his scent that’s blown Jaskier’s way, or his katakan senses have amplified what they’ve been looking for, Jaskier recognizes it instantly, and turns, spotting Geralt in an instant.

He looks grim, serious, and bloody. A head of some monster drips black ooze from Roach’s side.

Jaskier lights up. “Geralt,” he says, not running, but rushing towards him until he’s back near the stables.

“You’re up,” Geralt notes, and the corner of his mouth lifts from his perpetual frown, which for Geralt constitutes a smile.

It’s a good look on him. Jaskier feels that pressure in his chest, blood rushing in his ears, and he feels warm all over. Gods, Jaskier thinks, he’s still in love with this man. Jaskier looks at him, for a long moment, and can’t help leaning in--though there’s little space between them to begin with--touching Geralt’s face, before he touches their cheeks together.

It’s nothing. It's barely there. It certainly doesn’t drown Jaskier in Geralt’s scent, but it’s better than before, and it calms something inside him. Geralt touches his waist, and doesn't let go.

“Had a few errands to run,” Jaskier says. “Good hunt, I see.”

Geralt hums. “Still need to get paid.”

“You should drop by the inn, get a bath. I’ll be performing.”

Geralt hums again but it’s neither in agreement or refusal. Jaskier sighs and pulls away. “I’ll be waiting then.”

Geralt doesn’t let go. He stares at Jaskier for a moment longer with that expression he always makes when he wants something, or is looking for something. His brows always draw together, creasing his forehead.

Jaskier smiles, and lifts a hand to rub that crease out. “Last time someone looked at me like that we ended up making a baby.”

Geralt huffs. The look mellows but it’s still there. “Oh only the last time, huh?”

“It’s better than saying you let me chase you around the forest and--”

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, sounding pained. He sighs. “I’ll see you later.”

It’s not a lie, exactly. Jaskier plays in the inn, expecting Geralt to come through the doors the entire time. When he’s still not back when his performance has finished Jaskier is a little disappointed. He goes up to the room just before dawn cracks the sky. There’s little to do in those early moments, so Jaskier takes to looking over his loot from the day, folding up his new acquisitions, having a bath, and filling up another one for when Geralt inevitably returns.

Only when he starts inspecting his old clothes, does he feel something in his pockets, and finds, completely horrified, jewelry in it. It’s not his jewelry. He doesn’t know where it’s from, but there’s a necklace and two rings in his hand. Nobody gave them to him, that’s for certain. He doesn’t like to think that he stole them, but that’s probably the only explanation, unless the shop owners were _really_ generous.  
  
He looks at the golden jewelry, then replaces it in his pocket, and puts his pants away in favor of dressing for bed. He’ll pawn it off quietly tomorrow.

However, even in the bed he knows no peace. He misses Geralt’s scent. He’s sure it has something to do with the pregnancy, he needs it to be, otherwise he’s being pathetic. Despite this, he fishes out Geralt’s old undershirt which smells not just like Geralt but of _them_ , together. It’s the only, and the best, alternative he has.

He dresses in it, and lays in bed, hiding himself under the blankets from the early morning rays slipping between the closed shutters. He’s halfway to sleep when he hears the doors opening. Jaskier doesn’t ignore Geralt as much as he feels drowsy, so he lays there, breath slow. He listens to Geralt putting down his pack, sighing softly as his feet barely make a sound over the otherwise creaky floor, before he begins unbuckling his armor.

He makes little noise as he washes up and re-dresses but he makes no move towards the bed. Jaskier, curious, turns around to look at him.

“Geralt?” he asks, seeing the man kneeling by his pack. He sits up, to get a better look.

“Sleep,” Geralt tells him.

“What the hell are you doing--are you _meditating_ on the _floor_?”

Geralt sighs, as if he’s the one who should be exasperated.

“Leave it be,” Geralt replies.

Really, Jaskier thinks, this is the last fucking straw. Now he won’t even sleep next to him.

“I didn’t think you needed a fucking invitation but here it is,” he flips the corner of the blankets. “Now, we’re paying for this bed, and you better use it. Don’t be stupid and come here.”

Geralt looks at him, a little caught out. He says, “Why are you wearing my shirt?”

“I missed your scent, dumbass,” Jaskier huffs. “And you, in general. Now come here, so I can scent you.”

Geralt’s face looks like he got punched. He stands, regardless. The bed dips and Jaskier shuffles closer to the wall to accommodate his bulk. Once Geralt is in the bed, Jaskier wraps his hands around him and pushes his face into his neck. He never thought he’d be aggressively scenting someone, or that it’s an aggressive act to begin with, but here he is. Geralt really tests his limits.

Geralt holds still even as his scent turns sweet. Jaskier can smell pomegranate on his breath. Eventually, he touches Jaskier’s hip, and let’s his hand smooth over Jaskier’s flank to his back where it rests between his shoulder blades.

“Alright, enlighten me,” Jaskier mutters, “have you decided you just don’t find me appealing pregnant anymore, or is it something else that has you running from my bed?”

Geralt releases a strangled little breath that sounds surprised. So it’s something else, Jaskier thinks.

“You don’t know how good you smell to me,” Geralt says slowly, as if stalling might keep the obvious need in his voice away. And yet, just a moment later he nudges his nose into the crook of Jaskier’s neck, and breathes him in. “When I’m here, it’s difficult to leave.”

Jaskier feels his heart stuttering. “You don’t have to leave. We can stay, just like this.”

Geralt’s breath is hot against his neck, soft mouth over his glands making Jaskier twitch all over. The presence of Geralt in the bed has Jaskier’s body heating, as if it knows a source of pleasure when it feels his strong grip, his caress, his warmth. The way he slides his hand down his back, and traces it back up to touch the back of his neck, is intoxicating.

Geralt groans. “When I’m here you smell like your pregnancy, and me, and mine. I smell like you for days afterwards, and it drives me to distraction.”

“I was sure you’d never let me touch you again,” Geralt breathes, words like quick wind passing, dissipating, yet striking Jaskier’s heart regardless. “I couldn’t be sure when you were asking for comfort, for help, and where to draw the line.”

“You needn’t have. I never stopped wanting you.”

“Wouldn’t you be happier here, in a city, with people around you? With someone else warming your bed? I am-- I’m sure I offer something, but it could be provided by other, better--”

“I know no better man than you, Geralt.”

“I’m a _mutant_.” He says it like it’s supposed to be a point of argument. “Your life won’t be the same if people know you’re with me.”

“You are nothing more and nothing less than yourself. You’re impatient with court etiquette, you’re passionate about the part of your craft that requires bestiaries and collecting knowledge, and you know the heart of people well enough to make them tell you even that which they wish not to.” Jaskier touches his cheek. “People see you for your violence, I see the moment before, when you plead for peace, when you try to deescalate the situation. Do not tell me it doesn’t hurt you when you must resort to it.”

“Could that ever be enough in exchange for a city, for a house, work, stability? Maybe Yennefer was right. Maybe Kaer Morhen, with emotionless witchers, could never replace this for you. You’d grow contemptful of me then, and I could never bear you hating me.” He huffs out a long breath and says, quietly, “I don’t even know how to be with someone. Not for long. Not like this.”

Jaskier can feel the nick of his teeth then, a moment before Geralt’s mouth moves away. Jaskier feels his heartbeat speeding up, heart threatening to beat out of his chest. His mouth is suddenly dry, and he knows he’s wagering everything when he says, “I don’t either, but we could learn, together.”

Geralt stills. Jaskier expects him to leap out of the bed, but all Geralt does is push him away gently, so they can look at eachother. His voice is a whisper when he says, “Don’t.”

“It’s not a line.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt sighs. “You would not tell me you were unwell. I had to beg you, for you to let me help you, and you only asked for it when there were no other options left.”

“I--” Jaskier frowns. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It matters,” Geralt says. “It matters for me to know that you’re honest with me. It matters to know that you trust me to take care of you, not just when push comes to shove. And, clearly, you don’t.”

Jaskier realises Geralt believes that. He _truly_ believes that. He feels indignation flare in his chest, but it calms down and settles into an immense ache and sadness.

“It’s not the issue of me trusting you, Ger. I just thought that--” Jaskier feels his throat closing with emotions, and he has to swallow a couple of times until he can speak again. “I’ve been left friendless just for saying I wasn’t alright. I didn’t want a repeat performance.”

Geralt’s eyes show hurt, even when he blinks them closed. “Do you think so little of me?”

“I think the world of you, you know this. I couldn’t have stood to stay so long with you if I did not. But. You know you’re important to me and I could not afford to lose you.”

Geralt’s eyes are startling gold when he opens them, yet sad and gentle all the same. “Why did you decide to keep it?”

Jaskier wonders himself. It hangs on his consciousness like heavy weights. There was little reason to, except the fact that the sorceress annoyed him. Yet, it felt right. Because he knew, that he wanted it, wanted to see it, to meet whatever person they become, because he knew, then, in Yennefer’s tavern, that he would not be alone. That Geralt wanted it too. And it’s a crushing realisation for someone like him, denied and brushed away for little infringements, to know he can have a pack of his own who would, for once, understand him as he truly is and let him love them, Geralt and the child both, selfishly, overwhelmingly, in all the ways that matter.

“I’m afraid the answer is quite simple,” Jaskier says, ignoring the way his voice trembles. “I wanted a family and I knew, if it wasn’t with you, I’d probably never get it in quite a manner like this. I saw, there, in that tavern, that you wanted it too, so I made a choice.”

“It’s not just about the child,” Geralt says.

Jaskier hums. “I sure hope not, I mean--look at me. You’d be missing out.”

Geralt swallows a soft chuckle, allowing it to alleviate the serious situation.

“Jaskier,” he says, “I don’t want it to just be--situational. Because it isn’t. So it isn’t just about the kid. Do you understand?”

Geralt holds his face, eyes ablaze with feeling and conviction. This is, Jaskier realises, the closest Geralt will come to any sort of confession.

Jaskier surges, pressing their lips together. “Geralt, you absolute idiot,” he says with half a breath, the other completely stolen, before kissing him again. “You unobservant fool. I _love_ you.”

Geralt’s face shows everything he isn’t saying, raw, open, wounded, splayed open even as Geralt brings him back down to kiss him, ruining everything else Jaskier wanted to say. It doesn’t matter, Jaskier thinks then, feeling Geralt’s trembling lips as a sound rips from his throat--pain, need, and want echoing in it all at once.

His arms still him in his efforts as Geralt lays their foreheads together, to breathe. “I can’t,” he says. “I know-- I know how you love. I’ve been there, seen it. You take what you want, and then you leave. And I just can’t--”

He sits up, as if he can’t stand the closeness, as if it’s killing him and he needs to breathe. Jaskier watches, stunned, hurt, devastated, as Geralt’s back bends and he rests his face in his hands.

Jaskier was right. He knew Geralt would never have appreciated games. Yet, what he felt for everyone before pales in comparison to what he feels for Geralt now. Jaskier didn’t want to be abandoned. But now, as he looks at Geralt, he realises he isn’t the only one with such fears. How he didn’t see it before, he doesn’t know. He’s been a fool too.

“Witchers should be able to bear any pain, but whatever the fuck lingering tendrils of them remain inside me, would make your departing a wound I do not think I can bear.”

Words crowd Jaskier’s tongue, and he lets them all die there, in his mouth. Instead he sits up as well, to see if at least Geralt will tolerate his touch. When he doesn’t shrug his hand off, and instead just shivers, Jaskier leans against him, running it up and down his back, until Geralt has his hands in his lap, and he’s looking at them.

“Did you know,” Jaskier says, “that I was born in Redania?”

Geralt doesn’t reply but such things never stopped Jaskier before.

“See, early on I understood my gift, both at playing instruments, and entertaining people. They don’t care much about the person who is the source of their amusement, you see, as long as they’re having fun. Tell me, which noble lady wants a serious relationship with a bard?” None, is the answer. Geralt knows this. “It’s the unwritten rule. They want to be adored and loved, but not seriously. I did not let myself fall in love with them, truly, because they did not want it, and because I did not want to get attached-- I didn’t want to be the only one in love.”

He lays his head down on one of Geralt’s shoulders while he circles the rest of that broad expanse with his hand. The other Jaskier lays on Geralt’s cheek.

“I knew that’s not what you wanted, and I didn’t want to leave your company either, so I kept quiet. I thought it would pass. Affections do. This didn’t. Do you remember that lake? Do you remember when I asked you to let me hold you like that? That was when I realised that I was absolutely gone for you.”

He laughs a little, feeling exposed. He caresses Geralt’s cheek until Geralt gives in, and lays his head over Jaskier’s.

“I thought you’d not want that so I told myself it didn’t matter--you see, loving you wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, it was just never baptised until now. I was so sure that if you knew you’d not want to do anything with me, and I was afraid to change anything.”

Jaskier can’t help emotions overwhelming his voice then, defeating him in the last jousting battle. They creep in, flood his throat, and he can barely keep himself from flying at the seams when he admits, “So trust me when I say that there is no chance in all of the Continent that I would ever, _ever_ leave you, unless you told me to go.”

Geralt takes a breath before he shifts, pulling away to look at him. His eyes speak by themselves, and they tell Jaskier ‘ _don’t hurt me_ ’ as much as they say, ‘ _don’t betray me_ ’.He reaches for Jaskier’s face then, gently rubbing his cheek. “I trust you,” he says, and it feels like a confession all in its own right.

Jaskier smiles, breathing a sigh of relief even as tears crowd his eyes. But he won’t cry, not for this. This isn’t the time for tears.

Geralt brings him in close regardless, and wraps his hands around him until he becomes a sturdy blanket, even as he leans their heads together. It’s a heavy sort of comfort. It’s just what he needs.

Even when they lie down and settle themselves amongst the blankets, Geralt doesn’t let go. He just rolls on top of him, and that weight of his body makes Jaskier feel as if he’s completely enveloped, covered, and held.

Geralt doesn’t say it in the end, but he doesn’t have to. He kisses Jaskier as they both tremble with feeling, and Jaskier tells him, over and over again, whispering the truth in his ear until, he hopes, it eventually sinks in. Geralt doesn’t have to be alone. And, the fact is, he isn’t. He hasn’t been for a long time now.

Jaskier is content to hold Geralt like this and be held, pressed into the mattress, for however long he needs. He dozes when the shine outside gets the brightest, with Geralt’s face pressed into his chest and hands on his waist.

When he feels those same hands slip under his shirt, hours later, Jaskier rouses. Geralt’s gentle as he follows his hip up to his flank, and even more gentle when his hand finally slides over the curve of his belly.

Jaskier doesn’t realise he’s purring until it’s too late. He cracks an eye open and sees Geralt staring up at him, startled, yet the curve of his mouth suggests he’s pleased.

“It’s not so big yet,” Jaskier mumbles.

“If I focus,” Geralt replies, “I can hear the heartbeat.”

Jaskier smiles, feeling for the first time singularity, unarguably, happy. He brushes the hair from Geralt’s face, caressing his temples and forehead. “It’s our baby. We’re going to be a pack.”

Geralt shivers, and closes his eyes. Then he takes a breath, his grip tightens, and Jaskier yelps when he is dragged down the bed until they’re nose to nose. Geralt kisses him like that, stupid and breathless.

#### -

The perhaps unfortunate thing about all this is the fact that Geralt’s in the bed, after days of being absent. Specifically, he’s in the bed, holding him, and Jaskier has never had such a long dry spell before, which means that his body reacts. Geralt’s cold hand on his back makes him shiver as he’s kissed, and Jaskier has to put a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to push him away because he knows where this will go if they continue. Yet, it seems, Geralt has the same idea as him. He takes Jaskier’s wrist and rubs his glands, making him shiver even as he licks into Jaskier’s mouth. The other hand which has been cradling his head slips down as well, deft fingers pressing and kneading into the nape of his neck, rubbing his glands. Geralt, the bastard, knows just how little it takes to get Jaskier going.

Even Jaskier can smell the scent of his slick in the air. After such a long time Jaskier’s sensitive, and he can’t help the choked off moan as Geralt slides his hand down to his ass to cup a handful. He presses two fingers there, against his opening, and Jaskier shivers. He’s feeling it too much.

Geralt’s fingers lingers like that, rubbing over his hole until slick’s running down his thighs. Even then, they do little else than spread it around and circle his rim, teasing, but never slipping in.

Jaskier groans in frustration, hard in his smalls and in need.

At least he’s not alone. Geralt shudders in that delicious way he always does when Jaskier touches his neck, especially when he scratches over his glands, and moans after Jaskier trails his fingers down his front, past his pecs, over his belly, to wrap a hand around his cock.

“Already,” he says, astonished. Geralt’s hard, and leaking.

Geralt hums, and pushes his fingers inside. He hooks them, it seems just to make Jaskier feel them, but doesn’t linger. The wonderful side of bedding someone on multiple occasions is that they inevitably learn your body, and Geralt’s been a quick and thorough study--it doesn’t take long for him to find the spot that makes Jaskier squirm whenever he rubs it. When he does, he’s merciless, massaging it in small circles, then pulling his fingers out to fuck them back into him, spreading them open as he pulls them out, stretching Jaskier’s rim. Gods, if he wanted to he could keep Jaskier on his fingers for hours. It’s only luck that they don’t have such patience.

Jaskier’s breath wavers, hand stuttering where it’s been stroking Geralt’s cock. He feels his pleasure coming on too quickly. It’s too soon but he’s too sensitive, even the smallest touch Geralt lays on his skin is magnified through the weeks of abstinence. He can’t help letting go of Geralt to wrap his fingers around his own cock, and urging that pleasure along. The thing he’s only marginally capable of is pressing his lips closed to muffle his whimper as he pushes his face into Geralt’s neck, shuddering, and coming all over his own fist.

The scent of his own spent has barely hit his nose before Geralt kisses his face, his lips, and tells him, “You’ll ruin me.”  
  
And yet, it’s Jaskier who feels ruined. Geralt’s fingers don’t pause, not really, touching Jaskier through his orgasm until the after-shakes stop, and Jaskier has enough capacity to kiss him properly. He hooks his leg over Geralt’s hip, bringing them so close that Jaskier can feel Geralt’s cock rubbing against his own, and he wraps his hand around them.

“Should’ve let me clean your hand first,” Geralt mutters against his lips.

Jaskier holds down a whimper, and instead just gasps as he teases the crowns of his own and Geralt’s cock. “It’s alright,” he says, “you’ll lick it off my belly and feed it to me later.”

Geralt kisses him then, clearly incited but obviously in need, and rolls his hips into Jaskier’s hold. Jaskier would laugh but all his breath has been stolen.

Eventually he remembers to say, “We’ll get the clothes dirty.”

“Thought you wanted to smell of me,” Geralt replies, though he lifts himself up at once to liberate his other hand and start plucking at the buttons of Jaskier’s nightshirt.

“I do,” Jaskier replies. He squeezes his hand around Geralt’s cock, just to feel him twitch. “You should come on my skin, make it last longer.”

“Gods,” Geralt curses, replacing Jaskier’s hand with his own, rolling on top of Jaskier, pressing him into the sheets, and kissing him. His breathing hastens, and it’s not much later that he does spill over Jaskier’s belly. He works his fist over his cock until he’s finished, then lifts himself up, to inspect his work. Jaskier trills when Geralt moves his hand through the spend, rubbing it into his belly. Jaskier usually doesn’t like possessive displays, but this? With Geralt? It means so much more.

“Filthy,” Jaskier breathes, pleased.

Geralt doesn’t react, single-mindedly obsessed with just looking at what he’s done. The scent in the air is cloying with intent, and he knows that now he’s in it, Geralt won’t let him leave the bed so easily. Good, Jaskier thinks. He preens under the attention, the scent of Geralt’s want, the comfort of knowing they can linger as much as they want, and that any touch is welcome.

“You’re wet, still,” Geralt says. Jaskier hums, reaches down, grazes his fingers over the mess Geralt made before pushing his own fingers inside his leaking hole. He knows what he’s doing, knows what the twitch of Geralt’s jaw means coupled with the growl that leaves his throat in the shape of his name.

“Though you put a pup in me, I still need you.”

Geralt grabs his thighs and drags him down for their hips to meet, Jaskeir curling his legs loosely around Geralt’s hip. “Keep pushing my buttons and I’ll be none too gentle.”

“Promises, promises,” Jaskier retorts without much thinking, just to watch Geralt sigh. He laughs, feeling fond. “Did you honestly expect a different answer?”

“No,” Geralt admits. “This was tame in comparison.”

“Tame?” Jaskier asks, lifting an eyebrow.

Geralt’s fingers are warm and gentle where they brush over the inseam of his thighs, startlingly different to the shock of pleasure that travels through Jaskier when he rolls his hips, rubbing their cocks together. Jaskier hums, pleasant little shivers traveling down his spine.

“Not a challenge,” Geralt adds.

Jaskier wants to snark something about that, but Geralt’s touches are distracting. It’s been too long since he felt his hands on his skin.

“You’re so hard, the only thought you have right now is of shutting me up and bending me over, making me squeal on your cock. You’re desperate for it.”

“Just me?” Geralt asks, even as he wraps a hand around both their cocks. Jaskier groans, unable to control his hips as he fucks into Geralt’s fist, just to ricochet back onto his own fingers.

“Geralt,” Jaskier says, painfully honest. “It’s been as long for you as it has for me. Trust me when I say that I’m desperate for you too. Just look at me, I’m leaking all over the sheets.”

He is. Slick has coated his fingers, and is dripping from his knuckles down onto the bed. He’s over prepared-- a consequence of his dry spell.

He watches Geralt inhale, watches that raw want surface, liberated. This time, Geralt’s not trying to control it, hide it, dispel it. In fact, he looks like he’s just embraced it.

“Move your fingers,” he says, the growl evident in his voice. Jaskier shivers, and does as he’s told. Geralt pushes his thighs further apart, and spreads Jaskier, holding him open with his thumbs as he guides his leaking cockhead inside him.

Jaskier wraps a hand around one of his thighs, the other going around his own cock, though he can’t help the storm of shivers that spread through his body, reviving it, making him feel everything from his nipples down to his toes, until Geralt’s finally sheathed inside him completely.

Fuck, it’s really been too long. He forgets, every time, how good Geralt is for him. Recollections pale in comparison to the moment. He’s surprised every time by the fact that just his cock spreading him open feels good, at least until he starts rolling his hips and he’s reminded of everything, all at once.

Geralt tests a few short thrusts, not even pulling out much, before he grabs Jaskier’s thighs again. “Fuck,” he mutters. “I could just stay like this, for hours.”

“You did, remember?” Jaskier pants, his breath hitching when Geralt pulls back and slams inside him. He licks his lips. “During the heat.”

Geralt grunts, and repeats the same move, and Jaskier hisses. It strikes his prostate too hard, too quick, too soon, and rather than descending into pleasure, Jaskier feels as if he’s plunged into the deep end. Geralt corrects himself quickly, and Jaskier feels nothing but pleasure when Geralt rams back inside him again, hard thrusts measured, deep, but not too quick. It makes Jaskier feel it all.

“When you were knotting me,” Jaskier continues, “you wouldn’t let me sleep if I wasn’t held on your knot. You kept me full--”

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, but it’s a moan now, sharp and quick. Jaskier can feel Geralt growing harder inside him. Jaskier trills again. He has no more control over his omega side now, than he has over his choice of words.

Geralt’s hips stutter, and finally, Geralt starts fucking him properly, quick, and needy like they both need it.

“Fuck yes,” Jaskier gasps, tugging on his leaking cock.

Having Geralt like this, while he’s on his back, feels much different than when he’s taken from the back. It's still good, just a different sort of good, and Jaskier thinks they have definitely not explored it enough since the heat. He barely remembers the few days in any case, but when Geralt slams inside him, making his head back, pleasure so intense it very nearly hurts, he knows it was an oversight. It’s either that or he’s too sensitive. Perhaps it’s both.

Just like he promised, Geralt isn’t gentle. His hands are brands holding him in position, and he knows by now that Jaskier’s whimpers and hisses are from feeling good rather than a request to stop. The wonders, Jaskier thinks, of fucking someone you know. But it’s not just what Geralt does to him. It’s the sight of him like this, between his legs, the way his hip bones jut out whenever he rolls his hips, the perfect v that guides Jaskier’s eye down to where they’re joined, the muscles hidden under the layer of fat and skin becoming obvious when he flexes.

When he’s taken from the back he doesn’t get to see the strength of Geralt’s arms, the breadth of his shoulders, and the way he looks, lost in pleasure, feeling too much just like Jaskier. Geralt keeps looking between them, where Jaskier’s stretched on his cock, then back up at him. Words hang from his mouth, but whether it’s praise or pleasure, they’re supplanted by moans and groans of pleasure.

The scent in the air is intoxicating, especially now, with thoughts of heat and knotting in his mind. On the road, it’s pertinent to clean up quickly. They smell of each other, true, where they’ve touched their scent glands to the skin, but this is different. This is mating. This is them covering each other in their spend, scenting the other until they can’t smell like anything but the other. This is a claiming.

“Oh gods, Geralt,” Jaskier whines. His voice has gone a few octaves higher and for good reason too. He’s leaking all over his knuckles, and he’s going to come soon. He can’t help squeezing around Geralt, though his cock is determined to ram back inside him, the sound of their skin slapping and the bed creaking incendiary, incriminating, and inflaming all at once.

He gasps when he comes, his thighs locking tight, toes curling, body going stiff as it’s gripped in mind-bending pleasure. Yet, it seems, he’s not let go. No the pressure alleviates, but the pleasure is still there, and he trembles with it each time Geralt drives back inside him.

He’s so dazed that at first he doesn’t notice. He doubts Geralt notices either. Not until his knot is sizable, and Geralt’s thrusts halts as he tries to blink away sweat that fell from his brow.

Air rushes out of Jaskier’s lungs, in a long whine. “Why did you stop, don’t stop, come on--”

With great effort, Geralt manages to say, “I’ve just popped a knot, outside of a rut, for the first time. Give me a minute.”

Jaskier tries to catch his breath, but curiosity overwhelms him. “I thought that usually doesn’t happen.”

“No, not usually,” Geralt replies dryly.

Jaskier chuckles breathily. Two orgasms in, everything in the world starts feeling good, and everything becomes a good idea. “Well,” he asks, “What are you waiting for? Fuck me on it.”

Geralt groans. “If I fuck you on it, I’d want to knot you.”

Jaskier lays back down properly, and hooks both his hands behind his knees, holding himself open. He sees the way Geralt looks at him, sees the way his jaw jumps when Jaskier opens his mouth. Jaskier chuckles before he licks his lips, and says, “Then knot me.”

Jaskier yelps when Geralt snaps his hips back inside him. Then he laughs, though it’s a short lived sound, swallowed up by a moan, that metamorphosizes into a long hum as his body grows used to being stretched wider first, and then starts craving pleasure all over again.

It felt like teasing, like punishment when Geralt fucked him on his knot during the heat. It felt like dying every time Geralt pulled it out just to shove it back inside him again. It’s different now. He understands the appeal now.

His thighs start quivering, and he has to dig his nails in his own skin to hold his legs from slipping. Geralt helps at least, finally, when his large hands bend him in half, getting a better angle so he can plunge his growing knot inside him. Yet his thrusting becomes hard once again and not as quick as before. It tells Jaskier that Geralt won’t be able to pull out anymore soon enough.

Jaskier trembles. He can feel the knot pushing against his rim, he can feel it stretching him, but gods, it’s worth the way it presses up inside him, the way it bullies his prostate.

“It’s here,” Geralt warns, yet Jaskier isn’t prepared. He can’t be prepared for the way it feels when he finally pushes it in, for the way Geralt’s face contorts and he moans, his whole body shivering as he comes. He’s so beautiful in pleasure, so inciting. Just watching him is enough to make Jaskier want to do it all over again.

The position doesn’t hold. It can’t. Geralt, feverish with pleasure, releases one of his legs to grip the blankets underneath them, and Jaskier lets his leg fall to his hip so he can reach to touch Geralt’s back, welcoming him into the cradle of his body. Geralt’s other hand pushes Jaskier’s chin up to kiss his throat, there, over his voice box, before it curls around his nape, tugging on his hair to make him gasp, and to kiss him. Then he squeezes, pressing insistently over his glands as he lays his body over Jaskier’s, and buries his face in the crook of Jaskier’s shoulder. Just as Jaskier need to hold him, it seems he needs to hold Jaskier in return.

But it isn’t just that. With Geralt holding him like this, Jaskier feels like a part of him is hidden in the sheets, and the other part is covered with Geralt’s wide shoulders and wider back, and he’s engulfed, consumed, covered, and absolutely safe. It’s that safety that gets to Jaskier, it’s the fact that when he looks over Geralt’s shoulder, all he sees is wooden planks. Reality, the world, concerns, they’re all faded away, tucked behind the sloping mountains of his shoulder, kept away for another time.

Jaskier lingers in that particular feeling, until he feels Geralt shifting. Yet it isn’t far. He moves enough to kiss the skin under his mouth, his ear, his cheek, and jaw. Jaskier is overcome by such helpless fondness, he knows it can only be love.

He shifts his hands, so one ends up in Geralt’s hair, touching it, and his temples, petting Geralt until he can feel his breath against his neck.

“How is it,” Jaskier asks in a hushed whisper. ”How does it feel, outside the rut?”

Geralt breathes for a moment, then says, “Overwhelming. Maddening.”

“But good?”

“Too good,” Geralt replies.

Jaskier hums again. He can feel Geralt twitching inside him. He’ll be coming for at least half-hour. Jaskier understands how so much pleasure, so long, can alter a mind. He understands where Geralt’s coming from. To him especially, after so long, it must be so overwhelming that it borders on painful. Jaskier hikes his legs up higher, holds onto Geralt, and pets him until the first shivers pass.

Geralt’s breath against his voice box is sticky sweet, and soon becomes greedy when he starts grinding inside him. It’s almost accidental at first, yet when he starts he can’t stop. Geralt needs stimulation to come so much, after all, and Jaskier isn’t complaining.

Geralt groans when Jaskier urges his head up, yet seems relieved when they kiss. It’s not an overwhelming pleasure, yet it’s sharp, pointed, and promising, the way Geralt’s moving--shifting as far as the knot will allow before grinding back in.

Geralt works himself up until he’s shivering all over again, and he’s gasping against Jaskier’s shoulder, as if he can’t withstand it.

“You’re doing so well,” Jaskier tells him, petting his hair. He tugs on his ear with his teeth, just to feel him shiver. “How much come are you filling me with, Geralt? How much more will you give me?”

Geralt’s panting hard, and he doesn’t seem as if he’s all there. He looks lost in that world of pleasure, and holds onto Jaskier as if he were his only anchor.

“Everything,” he mumbles. “Everything.”

“Perfect,” Jaskier says, “You’re perfectly greedy. I’m already carrying your pup and you’re still knotting me. Are you that impatient, love?”

Geralt groans. Jaskier wonders how far he can push this.

“You’d keep me like this, wouldn’t you? Always on your knot, always pregnant. You can’t even wait for your cycle to rut your come inside me.” Jaskier’s breath hitches when Geralt moans against his neck, unrestrained and wild. If never before, Jaskier’s sure this is the closest Geralt’s ever come to his alpha instincts. That’s why Jaskier pushes and adds, “We’d have so many pups. How many do you want, Geralt?”

“I don’t know,” he says, and curses as he convulses. Geralt turns sub-vocal after that, chasing his pleasure until Jaskier’s cresting his own. And even after his knot has gone down, he lays like that, inside Jaskier, until he’s managed to gather all his marbles back in order.

He groans when he pulls out, and Jaskier shudders, feeling all of the come leaking out of him. They’ll need fresh sheets.

“That really wasn’t a challenge,” Geralt says, just before he kisses Jaskier again.

“But how else would I know you get off on the idea of me pregnant?” Jaskier retorts, smirking. He’s tired, sleepy, and yet, can’t help feeling wide awake as he watches Geralt’s face shift through emotions.

“It’s not that exactly it’s--” Geralt’s words fail him, but Jaskier’s never been one to avoid picking up the slack in that particular circumstance.

“The claim of it,” he says, “the claim that speaks of belonging. Do I belong to you, Geralt?”

Geralt seems to consider that seriously.

“To me? No. You cannot belong to just one person. But with me?” He brushes Jaskier’s cheek, and kisses him so tenderly, Jaskier thinks his heart will melt out of his chest. “Always.”

It’s unfair, Jaskier thinks, the effect Geralt has on him. In face of such honesty, Jaskier is left powerless, weaponless, but also raw and happy. Jaskier suddenly feels as if he couldn’t bear Geralt moving away from him, not touching him, and so it’s a gift when the man settles next to him instead. It’s midday, but they drift to sleep anyway.

#### -

Jaskier is the one to wake first. Discomfort from their previous activities, however, is quickly solved and washed off. Jaskier is incapable of being quiet, but Geralt thankfully doesn’t wake up even when Jaskier bumps into the chair, trips over the nightshirt, or returns to bed. It’s been a long time since Geralt looked so peaceful; Cintra gave him deep worry lines, though he’s tried to hide it.

The Child of Surprise. She is Geralt’s destiny. But the girl is barely a babe, a year and change old, and surrounded by family. Geralt isn’t someone to disturb such peace. Whenever fate brings them together again, Jaskier doubts it will be a time of good fortune.

But Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon is a distant and murky person, an idea really, so far from the reality of Ard Carraigh, Kaedwen, and the winter they’re in. She’s a visitor from the future, an uncertain possibility. This here, now, is tangible, just like the swell of his belly. Jaskier would joke that this child too is one of surprise, but he’d hate to curse his own child with such words. Jaskier is selfish. He could not give it up. He’s certain Pavetta feels similar. Perhaps it’s for the best that Calanthe forbade them enter Cintra ever again.

Jaskier watches Geralt wake. His eyes refuse to be anything else but captivating. It’s the glint of them, the shine, and then beyond, the gentleness within them that Jaskier wishes to drown in.

“What are you thinking about?” Geralt asks, quiet.

“Fate,” Jaskier replies.

“What about it?”

Jaskier smiles. He wishes not to trouble Geralt with his ponderings. He’d certainly not appreciate the reminder of his unfortunate situation. Instead, he focuses on other things, tangible things, and the more comfortable truths.

“We’re in the middle of the 2nd savaed. Midinváerne is long past, and it’s been snowing for weeks. We won’t reach Kaer Morhen in time before the mountain pass is closed.”

He watches Geralt’s expression deepen with worry. “Even if we left now we couldn’t arrive before Beltayne. The snow would slow us too much, if not the cold and frost.”

“We could stay here, in Ard Carraigh,” Jaskier offers. Before, it was a ridiculous notion. Now, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

“Jaskier,” Geralt huffs, “we don’t have coin to live in the capital, not even here, in the Bits.”

“We could manage until mid-Imbaelk, just another eight-nine weeks, and set off well before Birke, with the first spring when the snows start melting.” Jaskier lifts himself up on an elbow. “It’d take us less time to reach Kaer Morhen then.”

“If we leave so late, we’d not reach the fortress until mid-Blathe, and we still don’t know when you’ll be expecting.”

“I’m going to the clinic tomorrow. I assume they’ll tell me that there. We can plan around it.”

Geralt shifts to sit up against the headboard. “Then the issue becomes housing. As generous as the innkeeper is, I doubt he’ll tolerate both of us for nine weeks. Not to mention the fact that you still can’t control your shift. You’ll need space for it, and for the runs, but living expenses will pile up if we rent a house, especially if we both don’t work.”

“What about going back to Jelena’s village?”

Geralt seems to think it over then frowns. “It’s not bad, though we’ll need to travel back more than six weeks back, and then another six weeks again just to be where we’re again. We’d be wasting time. Time we don’t have.”

Jaskier feels crestfallen.

“It’s not a terrible idea,” Geralt says, without prompting. “Both of us would do well for that down time. But we need information, if about nothing else than the city itself, jobs, and rent prices.”

Jaskier smiles. “I think I know who I can ask.”

Geralt looks at him, then snorts. “Of course you do.”

He reaches over to touch Jaskier's face, just to pass his fingers over his cheek, before he sits up and reaches down for his clothes. Jaskier presses himself against his back.

“You don’t have to leave immediately,” he says.

Geralt glances at him wryly. “It’ll be nightfall soon. No better time than now.”

Jaskier considers his words, and says, quietly, “Let me have you, just for a little while more.”

Geralt stills and turns on his hip, to look at Jaskier with those big wounded eyes. “Jaskier--”

He breathes out, and yet he tosses his clothes back on the ground and climbs back into the bed. It’s hours later, when he finally finished that sentence with, “--you have me. You always did.”

#### -

The one truth Jaskier learned during his time in Oxenfurt is that academic efforts may be well and good, but they all pale in contrast to familiar wealth which, in turn, bows down to the institution called _the tavern_. When the older students told him he’d finish more classes there than in the actual university, Jaskier thought their words simple jests. It wasn’t uncommon to pick on the newcomers and Jaskier, in all of his fourteen-year-old glory, always too smart for his own good and just grown enough to come into his frame which has remained unchanged since, realised only a year later how shockingly accurate and valuable their advice was.

Understanding came with the realisation that professors, just like them, like to drink and have a good time. It did not matter if they were _your_ professors. Jaskier became quick friends with the medical and history staff which frequented taverns the most, ones to distract themselves from the grueling work, the others to enjoy the fruits of their tenure. Outside the classroom, Jaskier was entertainment--not as practiced with words as now, of course, but enthusiastic and always good with a tune-- and they were guests who had no expectations for him and thus were easily impressed.

Ever since he could charm his governess into cutting his history lessons shorter in favor of more time spent on music, Jaskier was aware that beautiful children possessed a charm. That charm transferred easily, especially because he was omega, and he knew he could get things with little else but a smile and a few heartfelt words. It was that same charm that made his patrons like him, and when they learned that he was a student too, they’d say, “If you need something fixed, just tell me.”

Fixing meant anything from talking the professors into leniency on his account, pulling strings, or in Jaskier’s case, avoiding his notable absences caused by sleeping in after late nights spent in taverns. It was easy for them, and it meant a lot for him. That was when Jaskier first realised people would relay, say, do, anything if the drink was good and atmosphere right.

Now, Jaskier’s seasoned recollection of his first-time fumblings amuses him. It seems somewhat obvious to him now, that knowing more people would lead him to more options, and making friends with the locals means getting better treatment.

Jaskier plays a few hours in the inn, and then goes to the next tavern, making his rounds in the neighbourhood until it’s dawn. Then he does it again the next evening, and next, slipping word to the innkeepers, bartenders, and servers, that he’d much appreciate it if they learned where he could look for work or a good place to stay. Jaskier has always found the rule of the world to be that, if he needs something, he only needs to let his words loose and they’d inevitably bring what he needs around. He thinks it’s the rule for life in general. Words stick in people’s minds. If they have no use for them, perhaps they know someone who will and they will pass them on, thinking they’re doing them a favor. Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself, Jaskier’s learned, is ask for what you need.

In the meanwhile, as he waits for news, he visits the local theatre scene. Though Jaskier prefers to operate alone, it’s the inevitable truth that troupes know plenty of people as well, especially those that straddle the line of law. If Ard Carraigh is anything like Novigrad, there ought to be some, at least, illegal activity around, which could inevitably prove useful if all else fails. Jaskier will also take any coin he can get, and theatres are not a bad stop. At least now, as katakan, he has more energy, especially in mid-winter like this when the sun is an idea rather than a rule, and he doesn’t have to sleep nearly as long.

His last, and least likely option, is his newly made friends. He doesn’t expect to meet up with Milva again but they bump into each other by accident, and Jaskier ends up in the same place, hidden between tall houses, drinking tea and eating wild berries. Persimmons have grown sweet and plump, quinces and plums in his kompot complementing the flavour.

“We’re considering staying here,” Jaskier says when the conversation finally lulls.

Callis crows, “At last, a reasonable person.”

They seem to look relieved, which is surprising in and of itself. Irma asks, “What brought this on? I thought you were supposed to be travelling northward.”

“It would take us too long to get there if we left now, what with the snow. We agreed it’d be better to wait for spring equinox.”

“You’d leave on Birke? But that’s the best part!”

“All town squares make huge bonfires. We’re free of any duty, except decorating the houses and streets. The king brings out food, and employs his musicians to play for us,” Milva explains. “On occasion the court sorceress even makes flower rains down onto the main square. Oh and don’t even make me start with the pomp around the novitiate ceremony for Melitele’s priesthood.”

Jaskier laughs. “Well,” he says, to soften the blow, “this is all very much up in the air. We’re looking for work, and a place to stay long term, since I doubt the innkeeper is going to tolerate us for so long.”

“You’re right,” Cellis says. “Not to mention that renting in the middle of winter is almost impossible, even in Goirid.”

“Goirid?” Jaskier asks. He’s never heard of the place before.

Milva sighs. “The city got too small for the population, you see. People started settling alongside the southern wall.”

No wonder Jaskier and Geralt hadn’t seen it. They came in from the west.

“It’s part of the king’s nephew’s estate,” Cellis says, “but because the king’s nephew isn’t using the land, they’ve appropriated it. Not like Prince Neven is using it anyway, heard he’s been chasing the Nilfgaardian sun the past few years.”

“I’ll ask around if anyone’s renting,” Vanya, who’s until now been in conversation with Sandra, offers.

“Cursed or haunted houses are perfectly alright too.”

They laugh, thinking it jest, but as much as he smiles Jaskier is perfectly serious. After all, he’s got the advantage of living with a professional.

#### -

The most Jaskier sees of the clinic for the first two hours is its facade. There’s not much to say on that topic, it constitutes what would’ve been three houses put together on any other block, and it’s built in the same fashion and of the same materials--brick, oak and stone. The only notable thing is that it’s isolated from other houses, the windows are just slightly larger, and the outside is decorated by now-faded paintings of the Rod of Aesculapius. He can’t even sit to wait--those chairs are reserved for the heavily pregnant and feeble.

At least when he’s inside the clinic, he gives his slip to the first nurse he sees, and she makes him wait again, until the patient before him has exited and he can go to the doctor’s office.

Jaskier can’t say he’s ever experienced the charms of public healthcare. The most he’s seen of doctors has been during his youth, while still under the tutelage of his parents. Later on, with Geralt, he saw plenty of healers, alchemists, and mages good with healing spells, but no surgeons, doctors, or nurses. Usually, all of them were reserved for cities or armies, and none for the folk that he and Geralt came across.

When he’s finally allowed up the stairs, he promptly sits in a chair and explains his reasons for coming. The doctor looks practiced, sharp, and in no mood to be wasting time. Jaskier understands--if she’s having the line Jaskier stood in every day, he’d be like that too.

Still, she takes her time to explain what pregnancy entails, and mentions all the small details his new friends have avoided saying, not to mention teaching him about proper infant care. It’s too much information at once, he’s sure, but he’ll trouble Milva and others about it until he’s got it down. Then he’s checked over, and informed he’s carrying low, but that it shouldn’t be an issue--many male omegas do.

At least, Jaskier thinks, the cravings won’t be an issue since his body craves only one thing, which is already a part of his diet. What troubles him is the nausea, though he supposes it can’t be worse than what he’s already felt while a katakan fledgling.

The doctor tells him to come again for a checkup since it’s too early to say if he’s carrying twins or not, but that he’s generally looking perfectly healthy--something that relaxes Geralt’s shoulders after he relays the information.

Unfortunately, that’s all the news he has, good or bad. At least Geralt comes to bed, wraps himself around Jaskier, and seems just as hesitant to leave. Yet, he must conduct his business during the day, whereas Jaskier sticks to working early evenings, so they have only a few hours together.

The week passes with no news, and Jaskier informs his innkeeper they’d be staying a little longer, which she doesn’t seem to mind, since he’s bringing in good coin. Jaskier spends his days running about the city from one end to another, gawking at golden jewelry, playing, and working with the theater.

Jaskier isn’t quite sure what Geralt’s doing but that’s nothing new. He speaks of his jobs only sparsely, saying he’d rather spend the little time they have together exploring happier themes, which always makes Jaskier melt and unable to pursue the line of questioning. Another week passes just like that, his only entertainment the burgeoning rumor of a thief in Ard Carraigh. A masked phantom, who leaves no trace, and steals only the most pricey jewelry has begun terrorising the city’s jewellers much to the amusement of the people. After all, it’s only the wealthy who can afford such luxuries and it’s not often that they’re disparaged in some way. Jaskier is amazed when he hears it from Cerris, who always has the best gossip.

“But how does nobody see him?” Jaskier asks, around a mouthful of the porridge she made.

“Well, Constanze’s brother-in-law who works for the guard says they don’t know either. Things just disappear, and they can’t trace them back because the thief isn’t trying to resell anything.” She leans in and says, “Apparently not even the criminal underground has heard anything of him. But I didn’t tell you that.”  
  
Jaskier is sorely impressed, both by Cellis’ wealth of information and the pursued criminal. “What the hell is a thief doing with so much gold?”  
  
“Beats me, but hey,” she smirks, “I wouldn’t mind it if he shared.”  
  
Jaskier laughs, and thinks nothing of it until he’s disrobing the next dawn, intent on crawling back into bed with Geralt, who watches him with eyes already kissed by sleep. He thinks of gold then, but is much keener on tracing his lips across his cheek, and laying with him than on talk. It’s in the morning when he relays the information as he watches Geralt dress.  
  
Geralt himself appears amused even as he’s lifting Jaskier’s pants off the floor, until a fat golden ring falls out of the pocket, rolls over the wooden floor, and stops just at the foot of the bed. Geralt looks at it, and it seems to return his gaze. Then Geralt looks at Jaskier.

“Was that supposed to be a humorous way of admitting you’re stealing?”

“Geralt come on,” Jaskier huffs. “I am many things, but never a thief.”

Geralt doesn’t look convinced. He picks up the ring, and says, “Can I check your other clothes?”  
  
Jaskier snorts, flicking his wrist dismissively. “Be my guest.”

He shouldn’t have been so confident. Jaskier watches as Geralt pulls necklaces from his doublet, rings and bracelets from his pants, and even more jewelry from his rucksack. He turns with evidence and a raised eyebrow while Jaskier struggles his way out of the blankets.

“I don’t know how that got there. No, seriously, I just--” Jaskier remembers, suddenly and viciously, his fascination with gawking at jewelry, and covers his mouth. “Oh fuck. It _was_ me.”

“Figured,” Geralt says, still sounding amused. He packs all the gold into the rucksack, as if the light of day might curse it into being found out. “I’m surprised it didn’t happen earlier.”

“What, me, suddenly turning into an amazing thief? Geralt, I could never pull it off. I’d die of guilt first!”

“Not you,” Geralt snorts. “Not this side of you, in any case. Your katakan side though is another story.”

Jaskier flops back onto the bed and says, “You should’ve probably informed me of that earlier.”

“Doesn’t matter, wouldn’t have changed anything. It’s just another symptom,” Geralt replies, sitting back onto the bed next to his hip. “Katakans are attracted to shiny things, gold in particular. Most I’ve seen even make specific jewelry for their measurements when shifted back into their original form.”

“But... how do they... I mean, isn’t it too large on them if they’re changing into humans?” Jaskier asks.

“See, a katakan’s original form is their beast form. They can change their appearance through magic to appear human, even conjure clothes. Under that illusion you can’t see the gold. Though calling it an illusion is wrong. It’s tangible. Clothes are clothes, they just recede back when they shift again.”  
  
Jaskier blinks at him. “That. You should have definitely mentioned that. You mean I could be conjuring clothes right now? This instant?”

Geralt chuckles. “No. It takes practice, magic, and you clearly have no instructors. Besides, their magic works opposite to yours. Your true form is that of a human, and are forced to shift into katakan. The only magic you could do is perhaps not ripping your clothes when changing forms.”

“That’s still something. That’s a huge something, Geralt.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Geralt says, and shifts down to press their mouths together. Jaskier enjoys the kiss whole heartedly. Geralt almost never indulges these sort of impulses of his.

“What do we do with it?” Jaskier murmurs once the kiss is broken.

“Nothing,” Geralt mumbles. “I’ll deal with it.”

“No way,” Jaskier replies. “It’s my fault, I ought to bear whatever consequences.”

“I know a person, who knows a person. They’ll give us coin in exchange for the goods. Don’t worry.”

Jaskier touches his face. “Is this an alpha thing or a you thing?”

“I am an alpha, Jaskier, the need to take care of you is inseparable from my personality.”

Jaskier considers him, then smiles. “So it’s a you thing,” he says and kisses him again.

#### -

Geralt doesn’t mention the gold again, which is just as well considering that the city guard starts actively looking for the perpetrator. Jaskier tries getting out of their way, which isn’t that difficult considering he’s dominantly active during the night.

That’s the silver lining to their situation. Though they may have gold, they still don’t have a place to stay in, even though Geralt decided to go check out the southern settlement. Jaskier can’t stop thinking about the prices of inn-stay per night, and calculating it up to the weeks they need to spend in Ard Carraigh, the astronomical price threatening to rival his best suits.

That day, as they peruse the wares of the open market, Cellis is excited to say, “I’ve found out why Duke Neven doesn’t spend time in his estate.”

Duke Neven, the king’s nephew as it were, per Cellis’ excited reports, has got a little problem of a haunted estate. Jaskier would laugh at the deja vu, if he didn’t think it ominously similar.  
  
“I thought to mention it,” Cellis says, “it reminded me of you, Jaskier.”

“Haunted houses are haunted for a reason. Usually an unjust death. If it’s true, then it means Duke Neven did somebody dirty.” Jaskier smirks. “A juicy story in the making.”

“Well, the servants said it was haunted. See people died but. Well. What haunts it, nobody can say.”

Jaskier considers this. “Do you think they’re looking for a problem solver?”

“What, you hunt ghosts next to singing songs?” Vanya jokes.

“I know a guy, you can say.”

“Jaskier,” Cellis says, “you definitely should stay away from this. You’re pregnant, for one, and for two, the king’s not letting anyone near the estate.”

Jaskier wants to reply but his nose catches Geralt’s familiar scent. If he can smell him, then Geralt can hear him, and Jaskier twists around, grazing his eyes across the crowd until he spots him. Geralt’s across the square yet his eyes already lay on Jaskier with ease. He lifts an eyebrow, Jaskier nods, and advances.

Cellis doesn’t question the altered direction they start walking in until she notices Geralt. Vanya stiffens, and she wraps her hand around Jaskier’s elbow in an attempt to tug him out of Geralt’s way. It’s too late, of course.

Jaskier brushes her hand off before he walks the rest of the way to Geralt, wrapping his hands around his waist, and touching their cheeks together in a hello.

“We were just talking about you.”

Geralt is a little stiff, especially with so many witnesses to his softness, yet his hand on the small of Jaskier’s back is inarguably tender, its meaning unmistakable.

“Really?” Geralt says dryly “Saying what exactly?”

Jaskier pulls away to give him a look, one that says that he ought to behave, before he steps back. “Vanya, Cellis, this is Geralt. And it just so happens that cursed haunted houses are the topics of his trade.”

“Ah so you’re--” Cellis starts, stops, and in her usual way of not knowing how to hold her tongue spews out, “I imagined you differently.”

Geralt seems to be in a mood, or at least is listening to Jaskier, because he says, “Taller?”

Vanya chuckles. “A bard for one,” he says, and shakes Geralt’s hand.

“So about that haunted house,” Geralt prompts.

Having been with Geralt long enough, Jaskier sees his impatience and knows that a long winded story might irritate him, especially when he has three people to contend with. To soften the blow, Jaskier says, “Goirid is on private property owned by the king’s nephew. The estate, and the houses on it, are mismanaged because apparently there were deaths which led to hauntings. I assume that’s why Prince Neven was chased out of his own home.”

“I’d understand if it were a leshen, the woods are thick south of Pontar,” Geralt says. “Though attacking the villa? Could be more.”

“That’s all I know,” Cellis says. “A friend heard it from one of the servants at the castle. Might want to talk to the stewardhal, though I’m sure they’re trying to keep the whole affair quiet.”

“Thanks,” Geralt says. “Jaskier, before I leave, a word?”

Jaskier smiles, and walks a few paces with Geralt until they reach an overpass.

“Nice company,” Geralt comments.

“I do manage in every city,” Jaskier replies.

“Their skin crawls at the sight of me so I shan’t linger too long. What’s the idea? You wouldn’t have told me this without a though and without promise of coin.”

“Well,” Jaskier starts, “ I’ve heard that the estate is used as hunting grounds during the autumn and spring, and it serves as a summer home for Prince Neven’s guests. However... it tends to be empty during winter.”

Geralt’s eyes narrow, but he still smiles. “Cunning. But it’s unlikely they’d allow us stay, no matter what sort of help I provide.”

“It’s not something I’m hedging my bets on, but it ought to garner you coin, attention from nobility, and that attention, however short lived, can be useful. It wouldn’t be uncommon for nobility to be very grateful to their saviour.” Jaskier touches his armored chest, and thinks how easily he could push Geralt around by the straps that hold his pauldrons on. He’s never considered that before. An oversight on his part. “If not the estate, they’d find us _some_ place to stay.”

“Were you always so keen in court intrigue? I thought you spent your days invading royal beds and pantries.”

“This is far from intrigue. And it’s abundant, the amount of gossip you can hear from the royal pantries...and the kitchen wenches.”

Geralt very nearly chuckles, and Jaskier counts it as a win. He resists kissing him, they’re in public after all, and says, “Good hunting, Geralt.”

Geralt inclines his head, yet looks at Jaskier a moment longer, before he finally steps away, and takes a turn into the street that leads towards the castle. Jaskier, amused, returns to his companions.

He can see thoughts racing through their minds, and he wonders if it was a good thing, letting them know about Geralt. Not that they’d not wish to keep him company anymore, but he’s sure certain speculations will arise, and with them pressing questions that will be deemed unavoidable. This is why as much as Jaskier likes normal folk, he also dislikes their prolonged company. Rumors can get toxic quick, and friendships sour.

“I didn’t think there were many of them left,” Vanya says.

Jaskier rolls his shoulder. “There aren’t. Now, we should really hurry lest we let Irma wait.”

#### -

Geralt doesn’t come to bed that night, nor the one following. It’d be worrisome if Roach wasn’t gone too. As it stands, Jaskier focuses on work, jotting down lyrics of his new compositions, and avoiding the drinks his patrons send him. He’s found that outside of a terrible pressure on his bladder, alcohol does exactly nothing for him. He’s even lost taste for it, which is a crying shame. He used to have a perfectly refined palate.

More importantly, Jaskier has become inspired to create something new, a new wind filling the sails of his craft, thanks to his stints at the theatre. Though it’s but Kaedwen, the performers would fit Madame Irina’s theatre in Novigrad easily if their talent is the only measure. Truly, it is only art that opens art’s doors. Geralt is an exception of course, but Geralt has always been his muse, and an exception to every rule in life he has. That, or he’s just rewritten them all to fit around the man.

Jaskier has become fond of the theatre director, an unlikely elven man age unknown, and the street performers, jugglers, fire breathers, and their ilk that all congregate at the theatre. It’d be a circus if not for the stage, though that is in no measure a derisive slight to the sheer talent that surrounds him. He’s spent so much time in court he knows a group of outcasts when he sees it, and he’s happy to share their table.

“It is too bad you came so late in the season,” Alfonz tells him, the director’s accent veering tightly into Nilfgaardian. “You might have seen a splendid show.”

“Perhaps I might yet see a show, Master Alfonz, provided I find a roof for the winter.”

Alfonz clicks his tongue. “I’ve already said--if it were just you, we’d find a place to bunk you. But you and your man who uninvolved with the business?” He shakes his head, as if to say he can’t do anything about that. His gestures, so different to the Nordling style, amuse him greatly.

“It’s not a dig, Master Alfonz, and you know I carry no ill will,” Jaskier replies. “Though I still maintain that _my man_ as it were, is the most quiet guest, and that he’s out, working, most day, so that he should only need a bed to sleep in.”

“Your bed, you mean,” Francesca mutters from the side.

Jaskier grins. “Naturally, I too need a night warmer, dear.”

Francesca laughs, cheeks easily garnering their pinkish shine. Jaskier has been insinuating about her affair with the actor Miercot even since he caught them, as it were, red-handed.

She gives as good as she gets though. She smirks and says, “Oh it’s just about a night warmer, is it? You definitely don’t smell like a satiated, pleased omega?”

“My you’re perceptive. I should just let my scent, and my vibrant beauty, do all the talking while I remain mum.”

“For someone who’s mum you sure talk a lot.”

“Alright, alright,” Alfonz says, getting everyone’s attention, knowing Jaskier could continue bickering ad infinitum. “I’ve amassed you lot because we’ve got news from the palace. Prince Neven is coming back after his well known two-year absence from the Kaedweni court. The stewardhal wants to welcome him appropriately, so we have been employed to entertain them for the night.”

Whoops and cheers of his colleagues are loud in his ear. The coin, he senses, will be good.

“Now, I’ve assured the envoy that we can cover all bases from minstrels, performers, and of course, actors. I beg of you, dear people, _behave_.”

There’s a chorus of voices all rising in agreement.

He sighs, knowing empty promises when he hears them. Keeping artists in line is like attempting to herd cats and you’re Geralt. It’s infamously impossible, and what’s more, you might come away with a scratch or two. “Now, who’s actually performed in a court before?”

Jaskier raises his hand, and sees he isn’t the only one. Another troubadour named Alan looks at him and inclines his head.

“Good, so you will know how to behave. And what not to sing. You’ll select your own repertoire, just come to me for final approval. Now onto entertainment, jugglers--”

Alfonz continues talking, but Jaskier can’t help focusing instead on the awfully convenient timing of Neven’s arrival so soon after Geralt went to investigate the house. Jaskier feels something isn’t as it should be, in that way he’s always sensed when he’s overstayed his welcome in someone’s bed.

Curiosity eats away at him, even though he knows it’s but a few shorts days before he will learn it all. No court can hide secrets from their servants, and what he told Geralt is true--the kitchens always know best.

He’s restless over it all the way until the few days of preparation they have are up, and they’re corralled into the castle under the watchful eye of the guards. The steward gives them instructions, warnings, and looks over their dress. They’re all wearing matching suits provided by him, so Jaskier has no idea what he has to inspect, and yet the snob does so anyway to his satisfaction, at which point he decides to show them where they are allowed to mingle with the rest of the castle servants.

Jaskier rather doubts he will be able to keep track of the whole theatre troupe, especially dressed similarly as they are, but Jaskier has a feeling he will try his damn hardest. The steward doesn’t look unlike a dried husk of wheat, thin and wrinkly, with slicked hair gathered at the top of his nape. He smells so disturbingly strongly of beta, Jaskier’s has to assume his position as a servant to the king has doubled down on some natural instinct in him.

Jaskier’s never been quite so managed before, and he despises it. He also knows some of his colleagues share the sentiment, and that the castle, despite Alfonz’s and the stewardhal's efforts, will be some gold lighter than before their arrival.

They are fed and watered in the servant chambers near the kitchens, and sooner than expected, they’re brought out to play for the guests of the feast.

Jaskier and Alan are put in the main room where at the dais sits Duke Neven, guest of honor, surrounded by relations. If Jaskier’s not mistaken, and he knows he isn’t, he recognizes all of the cousins of the crown, and though the king himself isn’t present, his presence is definitely felt in the visage of his sorceress, Sabrina Glevisigg.

She has that particular look in her eye like she’d be anywhere but there, and her posture speaks of restless boredom. All in all, as far as it comes to the second sorceress he’s ever seen, she isn’t that dissimilar to Yennefer; in fact their impatience tugs down the corner of their mouths in a rather similar manner. Jaskier wonders if they know each other.

As he plays he looks around the room, noting people of interest, and the fact that Neven seems to be getting quickly sloshed. It’s two people who aren’t enjoying his performance, and that’s two people too many. It irks Jaskier, and when he’s irked he gets vindictive. He will find what they like, whatever it takes. He’s sure something from his Witcher repertoire ought to do the work. That, or like Calanthe’s court, they’d much rather hear a jig rather than ballads.

When it’s time for his and Alan’s first break, and for the jugglers to come out, Jaskier returns to the kitchens for a refreshment.

“My,” he says to the cooks, “Prince Neven’s sending his regards to whatever brewery made his vodka.”

The women laugh, and he’s shoved into a corner with a shot for himself, and a bite to eat while the women work. The cooking has been long-since done, but food still needs to be organised into extravagant-looking dishes, and the appetizers have just been served.

Feasts in the north take a very long time to finish, which is the point. After the appetizer comes wine, then the main meal, cheeses, and finally dessert. Jaskier doubts he’ll crawl back to the inn before dawn.

“Oh Jaskier you lout, you’re just here to woo us into your bed.”

“My lady, are you against some good-hearted wooing?”

“I’d not be a lady if I was!” the woman replies. It’s a fine compliment as they stand, and Jaskier smiles.

“And yet,” another says, “does our honorable Master Jaskier, a fine alpha as he is, smell of home a tad too much?”

“Oh hush Vera, must you ruin everything?”

Jaskier’s found that not everybody’s noises are particularly good at distinguishing between scents. For instance, Jaskier has started smelling of Geralt so much that it is easier for others--other’s who still expect certain things from men and women-- to believe that Jaskier is an alpha, and that he has a wife, or an omega pregnant and waiting for him. He isn’t in the job of dispelling their self-deceptions if it works in his favour.

“If Miss Vera would like, we can shift the conversation to something more personable... I’m sorely bored by the boors at the dais, and I know you must have at least one interesting tale.”

Vera harrumps. Jaskier knows her type--she demands attention, but Jaskier has never been in the business of failing his partners while he coquettes.

It seems to be a good choice too, when Vera says, “Well, the castle’s been in a right uproar these past few days, ever since master witcher appeared. They tried to be very quiet about his presence, you understand, but we know we’re feeding an extra mouth.”

Suddenly, Jaskier can’t help but think about Geralt’s whereabouts. He wants to leave, to look for him, and it’s a surprising, yet overwhelming urge made worse by the fact that he can’t.

“A witcher?” he asks, faux surprised. “Whatever for?”

“We don’t rightly know,” one of the helping girls says.

“No,” Vera continues, “but the footman said he saw him heading out with six of the royal guards. They returned days later, only two alive. Later, the marshal ordered him and a couple other guards go fetch the corpses from the old manor, down south.”

“Vera!” the other older cook hisses.

“Oh hush Manon, can’t you see the man’s bored?” Vera says, rolling her eyes. “In any case, they all looked very grim. Later on the pages heard arguing between Lady Glevissig and the witcher. I think he’s being kept here.”

“A prisoner?” Jaskier asks, surprised.

“A guest,” she replies. “Or perhaps they need him for some other beast. Word is, something’s been haunting the old estate.”

“Oh that’s just a pish-posh rumor,” Manon says. “Made ever since that butchery--”

The helper girls’ eyes fly open and she shushes them as the heavy thud of guard boots passes by the kitchen doors. She turns to Jaskier and says, “See, we shouldn’t talk about it. It’s forbidden.”

“I will not insist you speak, though you have peaked my interest and my curiosity, and that I’d swear I’d tell no soul if you do.”

“Master Jaskier--” Vera starts, then sighs. “Oh fine. A couple years back I was working in the estate. The Prince and the missus were having regular rows but that was natural for them. He had a temper, and she had a tendency to throw things at him--they worked it out in the bed. We...see the staff regularly changed between the estate and the castle, so we didn’t notice when people went missing. Not until it was too late. Pregnant staff, the lot of them. The missus was killing them out of jealousy. When Prince Neven confronted her she ran, but he caught her. Killed her in front of us, for the whole staff to see. We were paid to keep our mouths shut and the Duke hasn’t been back since.”

“Huh,” Jaskier says. “Interesting.”

“Told you,” Vera smirks. “You can hear something interesting even in Ard Carraigh. Where are you from, Master Jaskier?”

“Oh here and there, dear Vera,” he says. “I travel all roads equally.”

“Then you must have a story of your own.”

“I do, and yet I fear this will be my last should the steward find out I’ve tarried so long,” he says. “For they are lengthy, require a captive audience... and intimacy.”

The women laugh at his blatant flirting.

“Alright, at least tell us of this beauty we can scent. You must’ve written a song or two for her already.”

Jaskier tries to stop himself from snorting. “Ah yes, great beauty,” Jaskier says, thinking of Geralt’s sour mug. “Ashen hair straight and bound, loose only in my bed. And the eyes, oh when they catch light they look as if they’re pure gold. And the bosom--”

Well, Jaskier thinks, Geralt has a pretty pair of tits.

“Suddenly I’m weary of the songs you’ve written,” Manon says with humor.

“Oh I’ve written many of my love, yet they are simply not appreciated properly.”

The kitchen doors swing open and Jaskier startles, getting on his feet, lute at the ready. But it’s not the stewardhal's angry constance that graces his eyes, but a far lovelier one. Geralt.

“You’re needed at the banquet,” Geralt says simply to Jaskier, and Jaskier makes his excuses and follows Geralt out, through the halls, walking next to him.

When he sees the opportunity, Geralt pushes him into a dark corner, right up against a tapestry, and Jaskier feels his heart skip a beat like he’s a teenager attempting his first court intrigue.

“Long ashen hair, golden eyes, heaping busom, my Jaskier, you’ve had your way with words.”

Jaskier laughs, feeling Geralt’s hands on his waist, crowding him against the wall, and yet it’s a pleasant place to be stuck in.

“Should’ve I gone on about the girth of your... sword?”

“They might’ve taken it literally,” Geralt replies. Then, he breathes him in, and lets their cheeks touch. “Damn,” he says, “I missed you.”

“And I you,” Jaskier says, curling his hands around his neck. “They managed to scrub you so clean you smell nothing of me anymore.”

“Got nightwraith essence all over me, had to.”

Geralt presses his lips over Jaskier’s ear for a bare moment, before he traces them over his jaw down to his neck, and what skin his doublet isn’t covering up. Jaskier turns his head so he gives Geralt more access, and is rewarded with a beautiful little shiver that races down his spine when Geralt manages to nick his scent glands with his mouth.

“Prince’s wife’s spirit turned into the nightwraith after he killed her, but the estate was crawling with other wraiths. She would’ve become a penitent, if the man hadn’t fled.”

Geralt’s voice is barely a murmur, and it’s disturbing how even his intonation is, considering the growing hardness he’s pressing into Jaskier’s hip. Naturally, Jaskier loves it.

“So why are you still here?” he inquires.

“She wasn’t the only one he killed. Sabrina is supposed to confront him about it tonight. Look, Jaskier--”  
  
“Master witcher!” Jaskier hears the steward shouting, and he startles so hard he pushes himself straight up against the wall. Geralt sighs and turns around to look at the man. “Yes?”

The man looks at Geralt, at Jaskier, then at Geralt again. Then he asks, “If you’ve... quite finished conversing with the bard, a seating arrangement has been made for you. And he’s needed elsewhere.”

“Of course,” Geralt replies dryly. He gives Jaskier a look that says ‘be careful’, and leaves.

Jaskier is corralled back to the main chamber by the steward’s angry glare, and joins Alan.  
  
“Look,” he tells the man, “let’s just play a witcher jig. Look, he’s right there, next to the sorceress. Ought to be fun.”  
  
Alan, always a good sport, agrees. The steward will hate him, positively refuse to pay him, but the crowd who’s been just been talking amongst themselves actually turns to look at them, and as the song proceeds they even seem to enjoy themselves. Even Glevissig laughs, elbowing Geralt somewhere soft.

“That’s the sound!” Prince Neven roars, and peers at Jaskier with his two glossy brown eyes. He doesn’t look unlike an old boar when he squints at him like that. If Never was ever handsome, those years have long since passed.

His face, cheerful, has turned serious when Jaskier turns to look at him next. Jaskier senses something isn’t quite right. Geralt didn’t have time to properly warn him but Jaskier has a good imagination, if the estate was filled with wraiths, and the wife became one, he can already guess that all the deaths were caused by Neven not the wife. And, Jaskier realises quite suddenly, he’s the one pregnant omega here. The only one, at least, Neven sees.

His first instinct is to retreat, but Jaskier fends it off, seeing opportunity in this situation. After all, he’s no longer afraid of men, not with his abilities such as they are. He’s katakan now, and he’s trained with Geralt enough to know how to control his strength. He only needs to go for the jugular if he must, or break something important at the very least. His slender appearance no longer honestly portrays his strength.

It’s on his second break that he approaches Geralt himself and spirits him away to the kitchen larder to make his proposition. Thankfully, the kitchen staff only gives them a strange look. Jaskier assumes they’ll be giving both the pantry, and them, a wide berth.

Geralt’s face looks like a storm breaking over Skellige. “No,” he says, with such conviction it sounds like his alpha voice. Unfortunately, Jaskier has pretty much come to associate it with sex, so it does nothing more than make him twitch.

“It’s a good idea, and you can catch him red-handed. Then you can finally come home.”

Geralt’s concern grows worse. “I’m not letting you be bait. You don’t know what he might do. Just because you’re katakan doesn’t mean you should just wade into danger.”

“I’d offer were I katakan or not, you know this. And you also know I can protect myself.”

“You don’t understand,” Geralt says, voice dipping low. “I could never forgive myself if anything happened to you.”

Jaskier wonders if Geralt realises what these sorts of confessions do to his heart. It’s difficult to take a breath, but he must, and he cups Geralt’s face and kisses him. “Then take it as less me asking your permission and me informing you I’m doing it. The responsibility lays on my shoulders.”

Geralt shakes his head. “That’s not how it works.”

Jaskier softens, brushing his hand over Geralt’s face. “If you don’t want me to do something I have more sense than to argue. Even though I’d really, really like to.”

Gods only know, Jaskier thinks, every time Geralt warned him not to do something his curiosity got the better of him and he ended up doing it anyway. Just because he argues doesn’t mean he won’t do something. However, this time, he will try and refrain from both.

Geralt sighs and leans their foreheads together, before he kisses him. “Thank you,” he murmurs, and it feels like it’s coming from the very core of him.

They can’t stick too long in the pantry, so Geralt leaves first. Jaskier follows a few minutes later. Unfortunately, he’s caught in the corridor by the steward.

Without waiting to be berated, Jaskier says, “I’ll be going back to the--”  
  
“Oh no, that won’t be necessary. The Prince has asked for your presence. In private. Now follow me.”

“Oh?” Jaskier says, glancing around, hoping to spot Geralt. Unfortunately, he’s nowhere in sight. “Whatever for?”

“I could not dare presume,” the steward replies. “I hope you understand this is not a request.”

Jaskier considers his options, and decides, fuck it. It’s better to follow the man than cause a scene, and let Neven go unpunished.

The steward leads him through the corridors until they reach the private chambers of the Prince. Jaskier takes a seat, as instructed, and the steward returns quickly with a goblet of wine.

“I’d advise you drink it,” he says. “All of it.”

He stands there just to make sure Jaskier has taken a drink before he leaves. Jaskier lowers the goblet immediately. While he’s glad his human-food-caused-nausea has passed a long time ago, his new senses that have made wine uneventful now tell him there’s something more inside his cup. There’s a strange taste on his tongue, and it coats his mouth in an unpleasant film.

Jaskier tests the doors and sees all of them are locked. The panic doesn’t kick in yet, no in fact it’s just a jolt inside him, at the fact that, whatever happens, Prince Neven will try to take his life. Jaskier wishes he were more concerned over it. However, Geralt is there, and even without him, if push comes to shove, he’ll just let the transformation take him.

There’s little else to do than sit, wait, and pluck the strings of his lute along the beat he can hear from downstairs. He’d try shouting for Geralt but he doubts his voice would carry through the thick walls.

It’s all about the face, Jaskier thinks as Neven enters. Killers, Jaskier’s learned, have a certain expression on their face just before the deed, during it, and right after. Something human leaves them, their eyes cool, their smile falls, and the ugliness only grows from there. Neven is the same. He sees Jaskier and his face falls, becomes calculating and impatient.

He doesn’t even let Jaskier address him but barrells through the conversation, saying, “Just to make things clear. You are unwed, and unbonded?”

“That’s correct,” Jaskier replies, that feeling in his gut warning him again. Jaskier isn’t used to being pray exactly, and especially not now, after the katakan curse. It feels wrong. It feels like he should fight it, he should smash the man’s face against the wall, and call it a day, just to assert dominance. Distantly, Jaskier wonders if this is how alphas feel all the time.

“And your delicate state was a matter of...accident?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”  
  
“Just,” he snaps, “Answer the damn question.”

“Yes,” Jaskier says, leaving his lute and standing.

Neven walks over to the goblet. “What’s this? Wine?”

“The steward brought it.”

“You drank it?” Neven asks, voice deceptively smooth.

“Yes,” Jaskier replies.

Neven, suddenly enraged, shouts, “Why?”

He throws it at Jaskier who doesn’t flinch as much as he shields his face, and ends up rushed against the table. Despite everything he’s surprised, and when he falls he takes everything from the table with him, until he and Neven are rolling on the floor, the man desperately trying to hit him. For a moment, the man ends up on top of him, and Jaskier sees how his face shifts, with victory and anticipation.

However, Jaskier’s spent too many nights on the forest floor wrestling with Geralt not to know how to get on top and pin the man. Fear isn’t in Jaskier. He isn’t the same as he was once, and there’s both relief and safety in that. Blessings come in interesting shapes.

Neven’s speaking, calling him a cur, a slut, cursing him out, trying to hit him slap him, even as Jaskier resists these efforts. Yet Jaskier can’t focus on anything else but the pounding of feet becoming closer, feet Jaskier recognizes, voice he recognizes, and one he doesn’t.

Neven doesn’t seem to hear them, not even the guards, but Jaskier can. He uses the chance to roll them again, so it appears as if he’s the one that’s pinned. Unfortunately, focusing on that makes him realise he’s missed something vital, and he’s reminded of it when he feels a sharp point of a blade pressing against his belly. Jaskier’s eyes flash, and he grabs the man’s wrist, gripping it so tight he knows he’s going to break it. He sees the surprise on Neven’s face just before he screams as bones snap under the pressure of Jaskier’s grip.

The doors fly open, and he hears a woman’s voice shouting, “Seize him!”  
  
Jaskier releases his wrist and composes his face into unfelt terror as he’s helped to his feet by two guards.

“You,” Sabrina Glevisigg points at him. “What happened here?”  
  


“Don’t listen-- I-- how dare you!” Neven shouts.

“The steward brought me here, locked the doors, gave me some swill to drink, and then the prince attacked me cause I was a pregnant, unwed and unbonded omega!”

Jaskier shrugs out of the hold of the guards. He’s seen enough theatre performances to know how to act vulnerable while hiding his rage.

The woman looks horrified. Then her face hardens. “So it _is_ true.”

The squawking from Neven doesn’t stop even when he’s brought to kneel in shackles.

“You killed all those people,” Sabrina says, “Over nothing.”

“Why should they have children, unwanted, mistakes, accidents, when me and Ana could not!” Neven demands. “Ohh, but no. It wasn’t anything wrong with me, or her. She just didn’t want them. Abortions, all of them! Her doctor let it slip, and I knew it to be true.”

“So you killed her for it.” Sabrina sounds, and looks, disgusted.

“She learned about what I was doing. Said she was going to tell everyone. I couldn’t let her.”

Sabrina shakes her head. “Guard. Your sword.”

The woman takes it and doesn’t hesitate. She swings and pierces the man’s chest. Blood drips from the blade protruding from the man’s back, but only for a moment before Sabrina tugs the sword out. With a sickening squelch, Neven falls dead.

 _That’s_ how we handle things in Kaedwen,” she tells them, then turns to the guards. “Clean this up. Discreetly. Neven will have died next spring in a hunting accident after a long illness.”

The guards nod. There’s not much you can disagree on with someone who’s just killed royalty, and seems to have been given leeway to do so.

She turns to look at Jaskier, then at Geralt, and orders, “You two. After me.”

Jaskier goes to grab his lute. Geralt touches his shoulder, but Jaskier shakes his head--he’s alright, he just has so much anger inside him right now, he doesn’t know where to blow steam. Geralt isn’t looking much better. In fact, he has that mask of his on his face, which tells Jaskier all he needs to know.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he whispers.

“Jaskier--”

“It wasn’t the plan, please believe me. The steward just came for me, told me it wasn’t an option to say no. Thought it was better to follow.”

Geralt sighs and shakes his head. Jaskier knows they will be speaking of this extensively later. “You’re alright,” Geralt murmurs, “that’s what matters.”

“Gentlemen,” Sabrina says, “I’ve not the whole damn night.”

Cowered, they follow the trail of her shimmering blue dress, that leads them, like a trail of sparkling thread, through the maze of rooms and corridors, into the very heart of the castle.

The tea room, beside the extravagant portraits of the king’s line, large bookshelves with disused books, and ornaments that grace the tables and collect dust, lit by the orange light of the fireplace and the candles, hosts a large writing desk against which Sabrina leans, while instructing Geralt and Jaskier to take a seat in the chairs situated in front of it.

“I trust that you know I can’t let this information leak. What I _can_ offer you is a price.”  
  
Jaskier glances at Geralt whose hands clench by his sides. Despite everything, satisfaction feels damn good.

Instead of telling Geralt ‘ _I told you so’_ , he nods to Sabrina and says, “We’re all ears.”

#### -

Making an agreement with Sabrina is easy for Jaskier, especially considering he’s had his eye on the prize the whole time. Not to mention the fact that he’s had a practice run with Yennefer, and knowing what to expect, makes her impatience and temperament far more manageable. Jaskier wonders if all sorceresses are like that.

They shake hands, but before they leave Jaskier stops and asks, “Perchance, do you know a sorceress named Yennefer de Vengeberg?”

Sabrina’s eyebrows jump up. “Haven’t heard the name in a while, but yes. She used to be the advisor to the king of Aedirn. She’s since vacated the position.”

“By will or by force, I wonder,” Geralt says snidely, like he always does when he senses something isn’t quite right.

“I too assumed she was dead somewhere. How do you know her?”

“She was providing services a few villages back,” Jaskier says, being vague on purpose. “I found it strange but who am I to question sorceresses?”

Sabrina’s eyebrows have climbed to her hairline. “Yennefer? Lowering herself to help peasants? Oh this is gold.” Despite the situation Sabrina breaks into a laugh. “The king of Aedirn, dissatisfied with his queen giving him only female children, and with Yennefer’s general functions as a glorified ass-wiper got tired of both and decided to rid himself of both, or so we heard. Either way, she can’t return to him, and I doubt she’ll go back to Aretuza after the stunt she pulled.”

Sabrina seems to remember herself, and she clears her throat. “But that the business of sorceresses and rulers, not of common folk. Fare well, both of you.”

They aren’t allowed to stay in the actual estate, as Jaskier expected, but they’re given the hunter’s cabin off the side of the property, just a short ride to Goirid, and then a few minutes ride to the city. They’re equipped with everything--food, supplies, horse food, and Jaskier’s even given a horse. They’re promptly escorted from the castle, and told in no uncertain terms that they’d rather not be seen there again until the whole debacle has blown over.

Kaedwen, at least, seems to have more understanding for witchers. It would have been really something if they were banned from another kingdom. As it is they’re simply paid off. Jaskier doesn’t think they ever owed as much coin as they do now, and it’s a rather sad ordeal he can’t get stupidly drunk.

Then again, that’s the last thing on his mind when they enter their room in the inn and Geralt’s hugging him to himself so harshly it’s difficult for Jaskier to breathe. “Geralt,” he squawks, even as he melts into his strong embrace.

“Things could have gone wrong.”

Jaskier manages to return the hug, and rests his head on Geralt’s shoulder. “Very. For instance, I could have transformed into a katakan, and you’d have been forced to do something drastic.”

“I asked you not to do this.”

“And I had every intention of following through with my promise, as I do on every other I make. I could’ve done ten different things, but all to our detriment. Sometimes, you just have to take a leap of faith.”

Geralt is silent for a moment, before he snorts, and with a smile looks at him and kisses him. “Yeah,” he says, “With you--yeah.”

They move to the cabin the next day.


End file.
